What Does 1 Samuel 7:10 Mean?
And as Samuel was sending up the rising offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel, but the LORD thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines, and shook them into panic; and they were struck down before Israel.
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 as Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel: but the LORD thundered with a great thunder on that day upon the Philistines, and discomfited them; and they were smitten before Israel.THE KEY
The word translated “discomfited” describes a force thrown into confusion, so the thunder does more than sound over the battle: it unravels the attackers’ order.
THE MEANING
When danger closes in, its nearness does not settle what happens next. The LORD’s thunder throws the advancing Philistines into confusion, and they are struck down before Israel; threat and reversal arrive in the same moment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a threat’s nearness means its victory is already secured does not hold here.
THE ROOT
וַיְהֻמֵּם
wayehummem
GROWS FROM
הָמַם
hamam
To make a tumult or throw into confusion.
“shook them into panic” in this verse is wayehummem. The Hebrew root carries the sense of a force being thrown into tumult, not simply defeated. The word reveals the attackers’ order collapsing as the LORD’s thunder meets their advance.
ALSO GROWS
wayyaham: He troubled or threw into confusion; a form of the same root used of the Egyptian host in Exodus 14:24.
וַיָּהָם
The same root describes a pursuing force losing its order when the LORD intervenes.
mehumah: Confusion, panic, or tumult.
מְהוּמָה
This noun makes visible the disarray contained in the verb translated “discomfited.”
וַיַּרְעֵם
wayyar’em
GROWS FROM
רעם
ra’am
To thunder or roar.
“thundered” in this verse is wayyar’em. The same root binds the LORD’s action to the thunder itself: the sound is not incidental to the scene but the means by which the advancing force is disrupted. The verse presents the LORD’s voice as an active force in the battle.
ALSO GROWS
ra’am: Thunder or a thunderous sound.
רַעַם
The noun names the sound carried by the verb in the scene.
hir’im: He thundered.
הִרְעִים
This verbal form shows the same root describing thunder as an action.
עֹלָה
olah
GROWS FROM
עלה
ʿalah
To rise or ascend.
“sending up” in this verse is olah. The burnt offering is called an olah, a rising or ascending offering. As the Philistines draw near, the verse places this upward movement beside the LORD’s thunder that breaks their advance.
ALSO GROWS
ʿalah: To go up or ascend.
עָלָה
This verb carries the basic movement held in the offering’s name.
ma’alah: An ascent or upward step.
מַעֲלָה
This noun extends the root’s image of rising movement.
THE PATTERN
An advancing force can be overturned when the LORD’s intervention breaks its cohesion.
And it was, in the morning watch, that the LORD looked down upon the camp of the Egyptians in the pillar of fire and of cloud, and threw the camp into uproar.The LORD thunders in the heavens, and the Most High gives his voice; hailstones and coals of fire.And suddenly there came a great shaking, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and at once all the doors were opened, and every one's bonds were untied.THE THREAD
And it was, in the morning watch, that the LORD looked down upon the camp of the Egyptians in the pillar of fire and of cloud, and threw the camp into uproar.The same Hebrew root translated “troubled” here and “discomfited” in Samuel describes the LORD throwing an advancing army into confusion. In both verses, the force closing in loses its order, and its momentum no longer governs the scene.
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