What Does 1 Samuel 6:4 Mean?
Then they said, What shall be the guilt offering that we return to him? They answered, Five golden swellings and five golden mice, according to the number of the princes of the Philistines, for one blow was upon all of you, and upon your princes.
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
Then said they, What shall be the trespass offering which we shall return to him? They answered, Five golden emerods, and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines: for one plague was on you all, and on your lords.THE KEY
The one blow erases the distance between people and rulers: every rank is caught in the same count.
THE MEANING
One blow reaches a whole community and its leaders at once. Its answer takes visible, countable form, so shared harm does not disappear into an abstraction.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A title places its holder outside the consequences borne by everyone else.
THE ROOT
מַגֵּפָה
maggēfāh
GROWS FROM
נגף
ngp
to strike or smite
The Hebrew word מַגֵּפָה (maggēfāh, “plague”) grows from the root נגף (ngp, “strike”), picturing affliction as a blow. Calling it one blow on people and rulers reveals a shared exposure across rank.
ALSO GROWS
nāgaph: to strike or smite
נָגַף
This verb makes the force inside “plague” audible: the affliction lands as a blow.
niggaph: to be struck or defeated
נִגַּף
The passive form places those affected on the receiving end of the same strike.
maggēfāh: a plague or widespread affliction
מַגֵּפָה
This noun names the blow that reaches both the people and their lords.
אָשָׁם
asham
GROWS FROM
אשם
ʾšm
to incur guilt or liability
“guilt offering” in this verse is asham. אָשָׁם (asham, “guilt” or “trespass offering”) names both liability and the offering associated with it. The liability takes visible, countable form in what is returned.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāšēm: to be guilty or incur liability
אָשֵׁם
The verb reveals the condition the offering answers: being liable for a breach.
ʾāšām: guilt, liability, or a reparation offering
אָשָׁם
The same word holds both the liability and the tangible response together.
נָשִׁיב
nashiv
GROWS FROM
שוב
šwb
to turn back or return
נָשִׁיב (nashiv, “we shall return”) comes from שׁוּב (shuv, “turn back, return”); here the verb carries the sense of bringing something back to its recipient. The response itself traces a return.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: to turn back or return
שׁוּב
This is the root action inside the offerers’ plan to return something.
meshûbāh: a turning away or backsliding
מְשׁוּבָה
The same root can describe a turn away; here it describes a return that makes the breach answerable.
THE PATTERN
When a breach becomes answerable, the repair takes a tangible, countable form.
And he makes whole what he has missed from the set-apart thing, and adds its fifth upon it, and gives it to the priest; and the priest makes a covering for him with the ram of the guilt offering, and it is released to him.Then they speak their falling short into the open, which they have done; and he makes his crossing over whole, with its head, and adds to it a fifth of it, and gives it to the one against whom he crossed over.And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, "Look, Lord, I give half of what I have to the emptied, and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I give back fourfold."THE THREAD
Then they speak their falling short into the open, which they have done; and he makes his crossing over whole, with its head, and adds to it a fifth of it, and gives it to the one against whom he crossed over.The word rendered “trespass” here shares the root אשם (ʾšm, “incur guilt or liability”) with the offering named in 1 Samuel 6:4. Numbers makes liability a return to the person harmed, while Samuel gives shared damage a counted, visible form.
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