What Does 1 Samuel 22:7 Mean?
Then Saul said to his servants who stood about him, Hear and respond, you sons of Benjamin. Will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards, and make you all heads of thousands and heads of hundreds?
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
Then Saul said unto his servants that stood about him, Hear now, ye Benjamites; will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards, and make you all captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds;THE KEY
Saul makes loyalty sound like a transaction: land and rank on one side, allegiance on the other.
THE MEANING
The verse exposes a live political move: a ruler frames loyalty as a calculation of property and status. Saul’s question casts David as someone who cannot reward the listeners, while Saul presents power over land and rank as the reason they should stay with him.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief is that whoever offers the greatest reward thereby owns another person’s allegiance.
THE ROOT
יִתֵּן
yitten
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
Give, put, or place.
The root behind “give” can also mean putting or placing. Beside it, the verse asks whether David will “set” the listeners as captains, making gifts and positions sound like parts of one political bargain.
ALSO GROWS
natan: To give, put, or place.
נָתַן
The verb in the question carries both the sense of handing something over and placing it.
mattanah: A gift.
מַתָּנָה
The gift branch makes the promised fields and vineyards feel like deliberate inducements, not incidental possessions.
שִׁמְעוּ
shim'u
GROWS FROM
שמע
sh-m-ʿ
Hear, listen, attend; hearing can carry a response.
“Hear and respond” in this verse is shim'u. Saul begins by directing the listeners’ attention, then supplies the terms by which he wants them to judge David. The root opens hearing as active attention, the point where a speaker tries to shape what follows.
ALSO GROWS
shema: Hear or listen; in a call for response, hear and respond.
שְׁמַע
This is the same root in Israel’s call to hear in Deuteronomy 6:4.
shemuah: A report or something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch links listening to what a person receives and takes in.
THE PATTERN
Power tries to secure allegiance or service by offering possessions, rank, or honor.
And Saul said to David, Behold, my elder daughter Merab, I will give her to you as a wife. Only be a son of strength to me, and fight the LORD's battles. And Saul said, Let not my hand be upon him, but let the hand of the Philistines be upon him.The king cried aloud to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. And the king answered and said to the wise men of Babylon, Whoever shall read this writing, and show me the interpretation thereof, shall be clothed in purple, and have a chain of gold about his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.And he said to him, All these things I will give you, if you fall down and bow down to me.THE THREAD
Hear and respond, O Israel. The LORD our God is one LORD.Saul’s “Hear now” and Deuteronomy’s “Hear, O Israel” use the same root, שמע (shama), meaning hear or listen, with response carried by the hearing. The echo reveals Saul’s appeal as an attempt to shape the response of the people listening around him.
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