What Does 1 Samuel 30:6 Mean?
And David was greatly pressed into a narrow place, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the living soul of all the people had turned bitter, each man over his sons and over his daughters; but David took firm hold of himself in the LORD his God.
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 David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the LORD his God.THE KEY
The verse names distress as constriction, then shows David taking strength in the LORD before the constriction lifts.
THE MEANING
Grief over those you love can close around you until even the people beside you become a threat; the living self feels the bitterness of the loss. The verse holds that pressure without dissolving it, and shows strength in the LORD within it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that other people’s anger decides whether strength is still available to you.
THE ROOT
וַתֵּצֶר
vattēṣer
GROWS FROM
צָרַר
tsarar
To bind, hem in, or press into distress.
“distressed” in this verse is vattēṣer. The word holds anguish and narrowing together: David is hemmed in by threat, grief, and blame. This is the verse’s Mitzrayim pattern, with life pressed into a narrow place even as strength is found in the LORD.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: Narrow, tight; also used for an adversary or foe.
צַר
The shared root gives distress a spatial sense: a person is pressed in, not merely discouraged.
tsarah: Distress, trouble, or anguish.
צָרָה
This branch names the trouble itself, linking the inward anguish to the constriction in the verse.
וַיִּתְחַזֵּק
wayyitḥazzēq
GROWS FROM
חָזַק
ḥazaq
To be strong or firm, to strengthen, and in some forms to take hold.
“took firm hold of himself” in this verse is wayyitḥazzēq. The Hebrew form means that David strengthens himself in the LORD; the source of that strength is named in the same breath as the act. The root spans firmness, strengthening, and taking hold, so this is strength present while grief and threat remain.
ALSO GROWS
ḥazaq: Be strong; be firm.
חֲזַק
Joshua 1:6 uses this form for strength as a state of firmness, echoing the strength David finds in the LORD.
wayyaḥazeq: He grasped or took hold.
וַיַּחֲזֵק
Exodus 4:4 uses this root when Moses takes hold of the serpent; strength carries a sense of firm grasp as well as firmness.
דָּוִד
Dāwîḏ
GROWS FROM
דּוֹד
dod
Beloved; dear one.
David’s name carries the nature of the beloved. Here that name stands amid rejection and threatened loss, showing belovedness as a nature that the crowd’s anger does not confer or remove.
ALSO GROWS
dod: Beloved; dear one.
דּוֹד
This is the seed behind the name David, carrying belovedness into the verse.
dodi: My beloved.
דּוֹדִי
Song of Solomon 2:16 uses the same root as an intimate address, showing the name’s relational sense.
THE PATTERN
Strength in God is present inside human weakness, grief, or trouble before the trouble has lifted.
To the chief Musician for the sons of Korah, A Song upon Alamoth. God is our refuge and strength, a help found very near in the narrow place.He gives power to the faint, and to those without might he multiplies strength.And he said to me, "My favor is enough for you, for strength is carried to its end in weakness." Most gladly, then, I will boast all the more in my weaknesses, so that the strength of the Anointed One may pitch its tent over me.THE THREAD
Be stretched toward the LORD; hold fast, and he makes your heart firm; be stretched toward the LORD.Psalm 27:14 uses חֲזַק (chazaq, be strong) where the KJV says be of good courage, the same root as strengthened himself here. The shared root links courage with firmness in the LORD, while this verse locates that strength inside grief and threat.
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