What Does 1 Samuel 23:21 Mean?
And Saul said, Blessed be you of the LORD; for you have compassion on me.
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 Saul said, Blessed be ye of the LORD; for ye have compassion on me.THE KEY
The Hebrew for “compassion” also means “to spare,” so Saul’s praise exposes mercy as a choice about whom to protect.
THE MEANING
Saul blesses the Ziphites because they help him, calling their action compassion toward him. The Hebrew verb also means “to spare,” and the surrounding scene shows what that compassion protects: Saul is aided as David is exposed. Saul’s name carries the sense “asked for,” placing the asked-for king’s own need at the center of the sentence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Compassion is automatically virtuous because it sounds tender. Here, the word names help that serves Saul while leaving David exposed.
THE ROOT
חֲמַלְתֶּם
chamaltem
GROWS FROM
חמל
ch-m-l
To spare, pity, or show compassion.
The same root describes sparing in 1 Samuel 15:9, where Saul and the people choose what not to destroy. This makes compassion concrete and directional: it names who is protected, while David remains exposed in the surrounding scene.
ALSO GROWS
chamal: To spare someone or something from harm, or to show pity.
חָמַל
The verb links compassion with the act of withholding destruction, not only with a feeling.
chemlah: Pity or compassion, as in Isaiah 63:9.
חֶמְלָה
This noun keeps compassion joined to the protection or relief offered to its recipient.
שָׁאוּל
Sha'ul
GROWS FROM
שאל
sh-ʾ-l
To ask or request; the name carries the sense “asked for.”
Saul’s name is the “asked-for” one. As he calls others compassionate toward him, his name keeps the sentence’s focus on the one receiving their aid.
ALSO GROWS
sha'al: To ask or request.
שָׁאַל
This verb supplies the root sense carried in Saul’s name.
she'elah: A request or petition.
שְׁאֵלָה
This noun shows the root’s movement from asking to the thing asked for.
בְּרֻכִים
berukhim
GROWS FROM
ברך
To bless; the root also holds the bodily image of bending the knee.
“Blessed” in this verse is berukhim. The word carries the bodily image of the bent knee beneath its meaning of blessing. Saul’s words name favor, while the root of compassion reveals what that favor does for him.
ALSO GROWS
barakh: To bless or invoke favor.
בָּרַךְ
This verb is the root of the word Saul uses to address the Ziphites.
berekh: The knee, linked to the root’s bodily image of bending.
בֶּרֶךְ
The knee gives the blessing a physical posture beneath the spoken words.
THE PATTERN
Compassion shows its shape in what a person chooses to spare.
And she opened it, and saw the child, and behold, the boy was weeping. And she spared him, and said, This is one of the Hebrew children.But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not devote them to destruction. But everything that was rejected and discarded, that they devoted to destruction.But a certain Samaritan, walking the road, came where he was, and when he saw him, his insides moved over him.THE THREAD
But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not devote them to destruction. But everything that was rejected and discarded, that they devoted to destruction.The same Hebrew root appears in Saul’s own choice: he and the people “spared” Agag and the best animals. The shared verb makes compassion concrete in both passages and draws attention to its selectivity: what is protected, and what is left exposed.
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