What Does 1 Samuel 20:39 Mean?
But the lad knew nothing. Only Jonathan and David knew the word.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
But the lad knew not any thing: only Jonathan and David knew the matter.THE KEY
The same Hebrew verb stands behind both “knew not” and “knew”: the difference is access to what the matter means, not access to the scene.
THE MEANING
You can be present to an event and still not know what it carries. The verse places the lad and the two friends on opposite sides of shared recognition: the same knowing is absent from one and present between the others.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that being near what happens means you know what it means.
THE ROOT
יָדַע
yādaʿ
GROWS FROM
י־ד־ע
To know, recognize, or perceive through experience or relationship.
“knew” in this verse is yādaʿ. The same verb can describe intimate knowing, as in Genesis 4:1, so its range reaches beyond collecting facts. Here it appears first as what the lad lacks and then as what Jonathan and David share: knowing marks access to the matter’s meaning.
ALSO GROWS
yediʿah: Knowledge, recognition
יְדִיעָה
This branch makes knowing a state of recognition, matching the shared understanding between Jonathan and David.
mōdaʿ: Acquaintance, kinsman
מוֹדָע
The root’s reach into relationship echoes how knowing in the verse belongs to a bond shared by two people.
הַדָּבָר
ha-dābār
GROWS FROM
ד־ב־ר
To speak or utter; the related noun carries the meanings word, thing, and matter.
The English “matter” sounds like a bare fact, while דָּבָר (dābār), meaning “word, thing, matter,” belongs to a word-family connected with speaking. The shared matter is also a message, and the verse’s contrast is about who can read it.
ALSO GROWS
dibbēr: He spoke; spoke
דִּבֵּר
This speaking branch shows the matter as something that can be communicated, even when its meaning is not shared by everyone present.
devarim: Words, matters
דְּבָרִים
The plural holds together speech and events or things, preserving the layered sense hidden by the English “matter.”
THE PATTERN
A visible event can hold a meaning that is known only through shared recognition.
The weight of God is to hide a matter; the weight of kings is to search out a matter.I am the good shepherd. I perceive my own, and my own perceive me.For what human knows the things of a human, except the breath of human that is within him? So also the things of God no one knows, except the breath of God.THE THREAD
The weight of God is to hide a matter; the weight of kings is to search out a matter.Here the lad does not know the matter while Jonathan and David do; Proverbs uses the same Hebrew noun, דָּבָר (dābār), meaning “word, thing, matter,” for what is concealed and what is searched out. The connection shows that the matter can be present before its meaning is recognized.
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