What Does 1 Samuel 21:5 Mean?
And David answered the priest, and said to him, Surely women have been held back from us these three days, since I came out, and the vessels of the young men are set apart; and the bread is ordinary, though it was set apart this day in the vessel.
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
And David answered the priest, and said unto him, Of a truth women have been kept from us about these three days, since I came out, and the vessels of the young men are holy, and the bread is in a manner common, yea, though it were sanctified this day in the vessel.THE KEY
The verse keeps the holy and the common in the same frame, showing that set-apartness does not erase the ordinary.
THE MEANING
The verse names set-apartness and ordinary things side by side: the young men’s vessels are called holy while the bread is described as common, even as sanctifying is named in the same sentence. One condition does not automatically erase the other.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that ordinary and set apart cannot coexist in the same moment.
THE ROOT
קֹדֶשׁ
qōdeš
GROWS FROM
ק־ד־שׁ
q-d-sh
To set apart; to distinguish for a sacred use.
Under “holy” is the sense of being set apart, and the verse’s later “sanctified” comes from that same root. The young men’s vessels are set apart while the bread’s common condition remains visible beside them.
ALSO GROWS
yiqdash: be set apart; be sanctified
יִקְדַּשׁ
This form appears later in the verse, tying “sanctified” directly to “holy.”
qādôsh: set apart; holy
קָדוֹשׁ
This adjective names the same distinct condition the verse attributes to the young men’s vessels.
miqdāsh: sanctuary; a place set apart
מִקְדָּשׁ
The word carries the root’s sense into a distinct place, keeping set-apartness concrete.
THE PATTERN
Set-apartness names a distinct condition that can coexist with ordinary things and be expressed through preparation.
And the LORD said to Moses, Go to the people, and set them apart today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothes.Therefore I urge you, brothers, through the compassions of God, to set your bodies beside God as a living sacrifice, set apart, well-pleasing to him, which is your true service.If anyone therefore cleanses himself out of these, he will be a vessel for honor, set apart, good for the master's use, prepared for every good work.THE THREAD
And the LORD said to Moses, Go to the people, and set them apart today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothes.“Sanctify” here grows from the same Hebrew root, ק־ד־שׁ (q-d-sh), as Samuel’s “holy”: both name being set apart. The connection shows that the root can mark a particular thing as set apart while ordinary things remain visible beside it.
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