What Does 1 Samuel 7:9 Mean?
And Samuel took a nursing lamb, and sent it up as a whole rising offering to the LORD. And Samuel cried out to the LORD for Israel, and the LORD heard and answered him.
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 Samuel took a sucking lamb, and offered it for a burnt offering wholly unto the LORD: and Samuel cried unto the LORD for Israel; and the LORD heard him.THE KEY
The LORD’s “hearing” is an answer: the cry for Israel is met with response.
THE MEANING
The cry for the lives bound up with yours is not merely received as sound; the LORD meets it with an answer. The offering rises wholly, while Samuel’s appeal holds all Israel before the LORD.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being heard can still mean being left unanswered: here, the verse’s verb names hearing as response.
THE ROOT
וַיַּעֲנֵהוּ
wayyaʿanehu
GROWS FROM
ענה
עָנָה (ʿanah): to answer or respond.
“heard and answered him” in this verse is wayyaʿanehu. The word rendered “heard” carries the sense of answering or responding. The verse presents the LORD’s hearing as an answer to Samuel’s cry, not merely as awareness of it.
ALSO GROWS
ʿanah: To answer or respond.
עָנָה
This verb is the root of the word used for the LORD’s action in the verse.
maʿaneh: An answer or response.
מַעֲנֶה
This noun makes explicit the response already contained in the verse’s verb for “heard.”
עֹלָה
ʿolah
GROWS FROM
עלה
עָלָה (ʿalah): to go up or ascend.
“sent it up” in this verse is ʿolah. The word rendered “burnt offering” comes from the verb “to ascend,” holding the image of something rising within the offering’s name. The verse places this rising beside Samuel’s cry, joining offering and intercession in one appeal.
ALSO GROWS
ʿalah: To go up or ascend.
עָלָה
The verb shows the upward movement at the root of the word translated “burnt offering.”
ʿaliyyah: An ascent or rising.
עֲלִיָּה
This related noun carries the same upward movement named in the offering.
וַיִּזְעַק
wayyizʿaq
GROWS FROM
זעק
זָעַק (zaʿaq): to cry out or call for help.
“cried” in this verse is wayyizʿaq. The cry is a plea for help, directed toward the one who can respond. Set beside the LORD’s answer, the verse traces a movement from urgent appeal to response.
ALSO GROWS
zaʿaq: To cry out or call for help.
זָעַק
This verb names Samuel’s urgent appeal for Israel.
zeʿaqah: A cry or outcry.
זְעָקָה
This related noun gives the cry a form that can be heard and answered.
THE PATTERN
A cry directed to the LORD meets a response that changes the condition.
The aligned cry out, and the LORD hears, and snatches them out of all their narrow places.For everyone who calls upon the nature of the LORD will be delivered.THE THREAD
With my voice I call out to the LORD, and he answers me from his set-apart hill. Selah.In Psalm 3:4, וַיַּעֲנֵנִי (wayyaʿaneni, “and he answered me”) uses the same root ענה (ʿanah, “to answer or respond”) as “heard him” here. The shared root reveals the same cry-and-answer movement in a single person’s voice.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us