What Does 1 Samuel 25:12 Mean?
So David's young men turned back, and went again, and came and told him all those words.
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
So David’s young men turned their way, and went again, and came and told him all those sayings.THE KEY
“Went again” carries the Hebrew return-root שׁוּב (shuv, to turn back or return): the men come back carrying the words of the encounter with them.
THE MEANING
An encounter does not become weightless when it ends: its words can travel with the one who returns. Here, the men arrive carrying the whole report, and what was spoken becomes present again in another place.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The conversation is over once the speakers part.
THE ROOT
וַיָּשֻׁבוּ
wayyashuvu
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
To turn back, return.
The Hebrew שׁוּב (shuv, return) gives “went again” the shape of a return, not merely another movement. The men come back with the report, so what was said travels with them.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: Return, turn back.
שׁוּב
The verb in this verse names the men’s return to David.
heshiv: Bring back, restore, cause to return.
הֵשִׁיב
This causative form shows how the same root can describe something being brought back, not only a person returning.
teshuvah: Return, turning back.
תְּשׁוּבָה
This noun preserves the root’s sense of a movement that turns back toward its point of origin.
הַדְּבָרִים
haddevarim
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak; דָּבָר (davar) means a word or matter.
The men bring back דְּבָרִים (devarim, words). The Hebrew word דָּבָר (davar, word or matter) keeps the spoken report close to the matter it describes: the words carry the encounter forward.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word, matter, thing.
דָּבָר
The plural in this verse is built from this word for what is spoken and what is at issue.
dibber: Speak, utter.
דִּבֵּר
This verb names the speaking that produces the words the men now report.
THE PATTERN
A return can carry the words of an encounter from one person or place to another.
And they came to Jacob their father, to the land of Canaan, and told him all that met them, saying,And the sent ones gathered together to Jesus, and told him everything, both what they had done and what they had taught.And when they had arrived and gathered the assembly together, they reported all that God had done with them, and that he had opened a door of trust to the nations.THE THREAD
Now David had said, Surely in emptiness have I kept all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missing of all that belonged to him. And he has set evil for me in place of good.The word translated “hath requited” comes from שׁוּב (shuv, to return): here, evil comes back in response to good. In verse 12, the men return with words; here, David names a return of action.
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