What Does 1 Samuel 6:5 Mean?
Therefore you shall make likenesses of your swellings and likenesses of your mice that ruin the land, and you shall give weight to the God of Israel. Perhaps he will lighten his hand from upon you, and from upon your gods, and from upon your 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
Wherefore ye shall make images of your emerods, and images of your mice that mar the land; and ye shall give glory unto the God of Israel: peradventure he will lighten his hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land.THE KEY
Here, “give glory” names God as weighty, while the prayer asks that the weight of his hand grow light.
THE MEANING
The afflictions and the mice are given visible form before the God of Israel. You give God the weight of recognition and ask that his hand grow light upon you, your gods, and your land. The verse holds what is striking you and the possibility of its pressure lifting together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a heavy hand cannot become light: the verse holds pressure and its easing within the same sentence.
THE ROOT
כָּבוֹד
kavod
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
Be heavy, weighty, or significant.
“Glory” can carry more than praise: כָּבוֹד holds the sense of weight and significance. Here, that weight-language stands beside the plea for God’s hand to be lightened, holding honor and pressure in one image.
ALSO GROWS
kaved: Heavy or weighty.
כָּבֵד
This branch makes the physical sense inside “glory” visible: what has weight is substantial and consequential.
kibbed: To honor or treat as weighty.
כִּבֵּד
Giving glory is recognition that assigns weight and significance.
יָקֵל
yaqel
GROWS FROM
קלל
q-l-l
Be light or slight; make light.
“lighten” in this verse is yaqel. The verb carries the sense of making light or reducing weight. Beside כָּבוֹד (kavod), it reveals a striking contrast: God is named as weighty, while the pressure of his hand is asked to become lighter.
ALSO GROWS
qal: Light or slight.
קַל
This adjective shows the basic sense behind the requested easing of the hand.
heqel: Made light or less burdensome.
הֵקֵל
This related verb form makes “lighten” concrete as a reduction of weight.
THE PATTERN
Scripture uses weight to speak both of divine significance and of pressure, while relief appears as that weight becoming light.
But the hand of the LORD was heavy upon Ashdod, and he laid them waste, and struck them with swellings, Ashdod and all its borders.I will strengthen the heart of the Great House, and he will pursue after them; I will show my weight upon the Great House and upon all his army, and the Egyptians will perceive that I am the LORD. And they did so.For our light pressure, which is for a moment, works for us a heavy weight, the weight of the ages, overflowing measure upon measure.THE THREAD
But the hand of the LORD was heavy upon Ashdod, and he laid them waste, and struck them with swellings, Ashdod and all its borders.“Heavy” in this verse and “glory” in 1 Samuel 6:5 share the Hebrew root כבד (k-b-d), the language of weight. One verse names the hand’s heaviness; the next gives glory and asks that the hand be lightened.
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