What Does 1 Samuel 25:2 Mean?
And there was a man in Maon whose possessions were in Carmel. The man was very great, and he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats, and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel.
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 there was a man in Maon, whose possessions were in Carmel; and the man was very great, and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats: and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel.THE KEY
The verse measures a man’s “greatness” by his flock, while the story soon shows that what can be counted does not reveal his character.
THE MEANING
You see abundance made visible in a vast flock and the work of shearing. The story keeps outward scale from answering the deeper question of who this man is. A large holding does not tell the whole truth of a life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Vast possessions prove that the person who holds them is wise or inwardly great.
THE ROOT
גָּדוֹל
gadol
GROWS FROM
גדל
g-d-l
To grow or become great.
The word גָּדוֹל (gadol, “great”) comes from גדל (g-d-l), a root of growth and becoming large. The verse makes that largeness measurable in livestock; the continuation names the man נָבָל (Nabal, “fool”), showing that material scale and wisdom can diverge.
ALSO GROWS
gadal: To grow, become great.
גָּדַל
It reveals growth beneath the word “great,” while the verse shows the size that growth has reached.
gedullah: Greatness, majesty.
גְּדֻלָּה
It carries the same root’s sense of magnitude, which the flock makes concrete here.
migdal: Tower.
מִגְדָּל
A tower is a structure that rises high, extending the root’s sense of growing tall or becoming great.
מַעֲשֵׂהוּ
ma'asehu
GROWS FROM
עשה
ʿ-s-h
To do or make.
The word rendered “possessions” is מַעֲשֵׂהוּ (ma’asehu, “his work” or “his doing”). Its root keeps work and what is made in view alongside the wealth located in Carmel.
ALSO GROWS
asah: To do, make.
עָשָׂה
This verb is the seed of the word translated “possessions,” bringing doing and making into the verse’s picture of wealth.
ma'aseh: Work, deed, thing made.
מַעֲשֶׂה
This noun shows the work or product sense carried beneath the verse’s English rendering.
גֹזֵז
gozez
GROWS FROM
גזז
g-z-z
To shear, clip, cut off.
“shearing” in this verse is gozez. The verb names the cutting away of the fleece, the act that makes the flock’s increase tangible. Abundance and removal meet here: what has grown is gathered by being shorn.
ALSO GROWS
gazaz: To shear, clip, cut off.
גָּזַז
It is the root action performed on the flock in the verse.
gez: Fleece; shearing or clipping.
גֵּז
It names what the act of shearing removes and makes available.
THE PATTERN
Scripture separates the size of a person’s possessions from the measure of that person’s life and character.
The one who leans his weight upon his riches falls, but the aligned bloom like a leaf.And he said to them, Watch, and guard yourselves against grasping, for a person's life does not lie in the overflow of what they hold.Hear, my beloved brothers. Did not God choose the emptied ones of this world, rich in trust, and heirs of the governance that he promised to those who love him?THE THREAD
Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife was Abigail. She was a woman of insight and fair of form, but the man was hard and evil in his deeds, and he was of the house of Caleb.The continuation gives the man the name נָבָל (Nabal, “fool”) and describes his conduct as churlish and evil, exposing the gap between his great inventory and his character. Abigail’s good understanding sharpens the contrast: wealth and wisdom are not the same measure.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us