What Does 1 Samuel 7:6 Mean?
And they gathered together to Mizpeh, and drew up water, and poured it out before the LORD, and fasted on that day, and said there, We have missed the mark against the LORD. And Samuel judged the children of Israel in Mizpeh.
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 they gathered together to Mizpeh, and drew water, and poured it out before the LORD, and fasted on that day, and said there, We have sinned against the LORD. And Samuel judged the children of Israel in Mizpeh.THE KEY
At Mizpeh (מִצְפָּה, Mitspeh, “watchpoint”), the people’s confession is visible before it is verbal: they pour water out before the LORD, then name their missing aloud.
THE MEANING
Here, your missing is speakable before the LORD, while water is poured out and fasting accompanies the gathering. Samuel judges the gathered people there, holding confession and accountability in the same open place.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that confession is only an inward feeling: here, it is embodied in a public act and spoken in the gathered community.
THE ROOT
וַיִּשְׁפְּכוּ
wayyishpekhū
GROWS FROM
שׁפך
שָׁפַךְ (shāphakh): pour out, spill.
“poured it out” in this verse is wayyishpekhū. The same verb names the water poured out here, the living soul Hannah pours out before the LORD, and the heart poured out in Psalm 62. That shared word lets an inward outpouring echo in this physical act, while the verse leaves the water’s symbolism unstated.
ALSO GROWS
va’eshpōkh et-nafshī: Hannah uses the verb for pouring out her נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, living soul) before the LORD.
וָאֶשְׁפֹּךְ אֶת־נַפְשִׁי
It joins the water poured out at Mizpeh to an inward outpouring expressed with the same verb.
shifkhu-lefanav levavkhem: Psalm 62:8 uses the same verb for pouring out the לֵבָב (levav, heart).
שִׁפְכוּ־לְפָנָיו לְבַבְכֶם
The verse’s water sits within a wider Hebrew image of bringing the heart into the LORD’s presence by pouring it out.
חָטָאנוּ
ḥāṭāʾnū
GROWS FROM
חטא
חָטָא (ḥāṭāʾ): miss, fail, go astray.
“missed the mark” in this verse is ḥāṭāʾnū. The people name their failure with a word whose basic image is missing. Their confession identifies what has gone wrong in their relation to the LORD rather than leaving the failure vague.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēṭ: A noun for a missing or failure.
חֵטְא
It keeps the confession focused on the failure being named.
ḥaṭṭāʾt: A related noun for the missing, also used for an offering associated with it.
חַטָּאת
The same word family includes both the failure and language for addressing it.
מִצְפָּה
Mitspeh
GROWS FROM
צפה
צָפָה (tsāphāh): watch, look out.
Mizpeh carries the sense of a lookout or watchpoint. The people gather at that named place, speak their missing openly, and are judged there; the name gives the scene a quality of being seen.
ALSO GROWS
tsōfeh: One who watches or looks out.
צֹפֶה
It makes the watchful sense behind the place name concrete.
mitspeh: A place from which one watches.
מִצְפֶּה
It opens the name Mizpeh as more than a location: it is a watchpoint for this public gathering.
THE PATTERN
What is brought into the LORD’s presence can be poured out and named openly.
Lean your full weight upon him at all times, you people; pour out your heart before him. God is our shelter. Selah.Rise, cry out in the night, at the head of the watches. Pour out your heart like waters before the face of the Lord. Lift your palms toward him for the living soul of your little ones, who faint with hunger at the head of every street.If we speak our shortcomings into the open, he is steady and aligned, to release our shortcomings, and to cleanse us from all crookedness.THE THREAD
And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord. I am a woman of hard breath. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have poured out my living soul before the LORD.Hannah uses the same Hebrew verb for the water poured out here when she says she has poured out her living soul before the LORD. The echo lets this physical emptying resonate with an inward outpouring, while the verse itself leaves the water’s symbolism unstated.
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