What Does 1 Samuel 5:9 Mean?
And after they had carried it around, the hand of the LORD was upon the city with a very great upheaval; and he struck the men of the city from small to great, and swellings rose in their hidden places.
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 it was so, that, after they had carried it about, the hand of the LORD was against the city with a very great destruction: and he smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had emerods in their secret parts.THE KEY
The hand that strikes the city reaches every body, small and great, binding civic upheaval to private affliction.
THE MEANING
The verse presents the LORD’s hand as an active force that unsettles a whole city and wounds bodies at their most private. No social scale escapes it: small and great are struck. Public upheaval and hidden bodily affliction belong to one event.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that carrying or possessing a sacred object makes a people invulnerable dissolves here: after the ark is carried about, the city’s affliction still comes.
THE ROOT
מְהוּמָה
mehumah
GROWS FROM
הָמַם
hamam
To confuse, discomfit, or throw into panic.
“upheaval” in this verse is mehumah. The noun translated “destruction” grows from a verb for throwing into confusion or panic, so the city is not only damaged; it is plunged into disorder. The root keeps the scene moving as turmoil, alongside the bodily affliction.
ALSO GROWS
hemim: He confused or discomfited.
הֵמִם
This verbal form shows the root as an action that disrupts and overwhelms.
mehumah: Confusion, turmoil, or panic.
מְהוּמָה
This is the city’s upheaval: the affliction reaches beyond individual bodies into public disorder.
וַיַּךְ
wayyak
GROWS FROM
נכה
nakah
To strike or smite.
The root holds the striking action together with מַכָּה (makkah), a blow or plague. English separates the act from its consequences; the Hebrew root keeps the inflicted blow in view as the men, both small and great, are struck.
ALSO GROWS
nakah: To strike or smite.
נָכָה
This verb names the force applied to the men of the city.
makkah: A blow, wound, or plague.
מַכָּה
This branch shows the strike as an affliction that lands on the body.
וַיִּסָּתְרוּ
wayyissateru
GROWS FROM
סתר
satar
To hide or conceal.
“hidden places” in this verse is wayyissateru. The verb comes from סתר, “to hide,” adding a hiddenness echo to the KJV’s “secret parts.” The affliction is intimate and concealed even as the verse describes a citywide upheaval.
ALSO GROWS
seter: A hiding place or secret.
סֵתֶר
This branch gives the root’s sense of what is concealed, echoing the bodily location named in the KJV.
mistar: A hiding place or place of concealment.
מִסְתָּר
This branch reinforces the verse’s movement between hidden bodily suffering and visible civic disorder.
THE PATTERN
In these texts, divine judgment reaches beyond public authority into bodies and communal life.
And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boil was upon the magicians and upon all the Egyptians.The LORD shall strike you with the boil of Egypt, and with the swelling, and with the scab, and with the potsherd, from which you cannot be healed.And at once the messenger of the LORD struck him, because he did not give God the weight, and he was eaten by worms and breathed out his last.THE THREAD
And they set the ark of the LORD upon the cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold and the likenesses of their swellings.The same Hebrew noun טְחֹרִים (tehorim, tumors) returns as images of the tumors beside the ark. What this verse presents as hidden bodily affliction reappears as an object they make and send away with the captured ark.
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