What Does 1 Samuel 25:11 Mean?
Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it to men whom I have not known, from where they come?
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
Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men, whom I know not whence they be?THE KEY
Nabal’s refusal begins not with scarcity but with unfamiliarity: the food is ready, yet the strangers remain outside his circle.
THE MEANING
The verse shows how possession closes into exclusion: bread, water, and meat are named as “mine,” while the men asking for them are reduced to strangers. Their unknown origin becomes Nabal’s reason for withholding food already prepared. The reversal is that not knowing someone does not make their need disappear.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie exposed here is that a person’s unfamiliarity makes their need irrelevant.
THE ROOT
וְנָתַתִּי
wenatatti
GROWS FROM
נ־ת־ן
N-T-N
To give, set, or place.
The root נָתַן (natan, to give, set, or place) holds both the act of giving and placing something within reach. Nabal’s question turns on that movement: the food is already there, but he resists placing it in the hands of men he does not know.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: Gift or present.
מַתָּנָה
A gift is something placed into another’s hands; the root brings the movement from keeping to giving into focus.
natun: Given or set in place.
נָתוּן
The food can be understood as provision already set out, while Nabal treats its transfer to strangers as unacceptable.
יָדַעְתִּי
yādaʿti
GROWS FROM
י־ד־ע
Y-D-ʿ
To know, recognize, or perceive.
“have not known” in this verse is yādaʿti. יָדַע (yada, to know or perceive) carries the sense of knowing through recognition and encounter. Nabal makes the men’s unknown origin the boundary of his generosity, as though people beyond his circle of acquaintance have no claim on his provision.
ALSO GROWS
deʿah: Knowledge or understanding.
דֵּעָה
This branch shows knowing as a form of understanding; Nabal’s refusal rests on the absence of that knowing.
hodiʿa: To make known or inform.
הוֹדִיעַ
The root also reaches toward making someone known, highlighting that unfamiliarity is a condition that can change, not a measure of someone’s need.
THE PATTERN
Provision reveals whether unfamiliar people are treated as outside the circle of care.
He executes judgment for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him bread and a cloak.For I hungered, and you gave me food; I thirsted, and you gave me drink; I was a stranger, and you gathered me in.Do not let slip the opening of your home to strangers, for by it some have sheltered messengers without knowing it.THE THREAD
He executes judgment for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him bread and a cloak.The Hebrew verb behind “giving” in both verses comes from נ־ת־ן (n-t-n, to give, set, or place). Here, food is placed before the stranger; in Nabal’s question, the same act is refused because the men are unknown.
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