What Does 1 Samuel 28:3 Mean?
Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel had wailed for him, and buried him in Ramah, in his own city. And Saul had removed the ones who speak out of the ground, and the knowers, from the land.
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
Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel had lamented him, and buried him in Ramah, even in his own city. And Saul had put away those that had familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land.THE KEY
The Hebrew word behind “wizards” comes from the root for knowing, setting public grief for the dead beside a claim to hidden knowledge of them.
THE MEANING
The verse gives grief room to be communal and bodily: Israel laments Samuel and buries him in his own city. It sets that mourning beside a boundary around people who claim hidden knowledge through the dead. The ache of loss and the desire to know beyond loss share one frame.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that longing for the dead requires seeking hidden knowledge of them: the verse distinguishes mourning from consulting mediums.
THE ROOT
הַיִּדְּעֹנִים
hayyidde'onim
GROWS FROM
ידע
ידע (yadaʿ) means know or perceive; יִדְּעֹנִים (yiddeʿonim) belongs to this word-family.
“the knowers” in this verse is hayyidde'onim. The Hebrew term translated “wizards” is formed from the language of knowing, placing the practice under a claim to knowledge. The verse’s boundary is about a particular source of knowing, alongside the people’s grief for the dead.
ALSO GROWS
yadaʿ: to know, perceive
יָדַע
This is the verb at the root of the term translated “wizards.”
yediʿah: knowing, knowledge
יְדִיעָה
This related noun makes the knowing-language within the verse’s term visible.
הֵסִיר
hēsîr
GROWS FROM
סור
סור (sûr) means turn aside or depart; הֵסִיר (hēsîr) means remove, cause to turn aside.
“removed” in this verse is hēsîr. “Put away” comes from a motion-word: turn aside, depart, remove. In this form, Saul causes the turn, clearing the mediums and wizards from the land.
ALSO GROWS
sûr: turn aside, depart
סוּר
This form names the movement beneath Saul’s act of removal.
yāsûr: he will turn aside, depart
יָסוּר
This form keeps the same root’s sense of turning away or departing.
THE PATTERN
Scripture gives grief public and embodied expression.
And they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is across Jordan, and there they wailed a great lamentation, heavy beyond measure. And he made a mourning for his father seven days.A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to leap.Jesus wept.THE THREAD
Do not turn your faces to those who speak from the pit, nor seek the ones who know, to be soiled by them; I am the LORD your God.The Hebrew term יִדְּעֹנִים (yidde’onim, “wizards”) appears in both verses. Its connection to ידע (yadaʿ, “know, perceive”) brings the claim to hidden knowing into view beside the boundary around seeking the dead.
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