What Does 1 Samuel 5:11 Mean?
They sent and gathered all the lords of the Philistines, and said, "Send the ark of the God of Israel away, and let it return to its own place, that it will not kill us and our people." For there was an upheaval of death throughout all the city, and the hand of God was very heavy there.
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 they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and said, Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it go again to his own place, that it slay us not, and our people: for there was a deadly destruction throughout all the city; the hand of God was very heavy there.THE KEY
The same Hebrew root underlies both “they sent” and “send away,” so the city’s answer to God’s crushing weight is an act of release: return the ark to its own place.
THE MEANING
Fear gathers the rulers around one demand: send away what they cannot bear. Death fills the city, and God’s hand is felt as an overwhelming weight there; release means sending the ark back to its own place.
THE ROOT
שַׁלְּחוּ
shallechu
GROWS FROM
שלח
shalach
Send forth, stretch out, release, let go.
The same root in “they sent” and “send away” binds dispatch to release: what is sent out can be returned to its own place. The name Shiloach, or Siloam, carries this same “sent” motion into the pool associated with restored sight in John 9:7.
ALSO GROWS
shaluach: Sent, dispatched.
שָׁלוּחַ
This form makes explicit the movement carried by the verse’s demand: the ark is to be sent back to its place.
Shiloach: Sent; the name Shiloam, the pool.
שִׁלֹחַ
This name carries the same root into the waters associated with sight restored; here, release is likewise a sending back to a place.
כָּבְדָה
kavdah
GROWS FROM
כבד
kabad
Be heavy, weighty; carry weight.
“very heavy” in this verse is kavdah. The root of “heavy” also yields kavod, the word rendered “glory” but carrying the sense of weight. God’s hand is presented as weight upon the city, something pressing across the whole place.
ALSO GROWS
kavod: Weight, honor; often rendered glory.
כָּבוֹד
The branch preserves the weight beneath the KJV’s “heavy”: the hand’s force is described with the same seed as divine weight.
kibbed: Honor, treat as weighty.
כִּבֵּד
The same root links physical weight with giving weight or significance, widening the sense of the hand’s heaviness.
THE PATTERN
Release and sending move what is held toward its appointed place or work.
And afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told the Great House, Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may dance a feast to me in the wilderness.And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here I am; send me.Then Jesus said to them again, Wholeness be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.THE THREAD
And afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told the Great House, Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may dance a feast to me in the wilderness.“Let my people go” uses the same shalach root as “send away” in this verse: both speak of release as sending forth. Here the ark is sent back to its place; in Exodus, release opens a way for the people to go toward worship.
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