What Does 1 Samuel 9:7 Mean?
Then Saul said to his servant, But behold, if we go, what shall we bring to the man? For the bread is gone from our vessels, and there is not a gift to bring to the man of God. What have we?
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 Saul to his servant, But, behold, if we go, what shall we bring the man? for the bread is spent in our vessels, and there is not a present to bring to the man of God: what have we?THE KEY
When the bread and gift are gone, the question shifts from what they can bring to what they still have.
THE MEANING
Scarcity is spoken plainly: the bread is spent, and there is no gift to offer. Yet the thought does not end there; it turns to the question, “what have we?” The verse lets what is missing be real while keeping what remains in view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that when the expected provision is gone, nothing remains to offer. The verse names the lack, then asks what is still with them.
THE ROOT
נָבִיא
nāḇîʾ
GROWS FROM
בוא
b-w-ʾ
To come, enter, or arrive; in the causative form, to cause something to come.
Both “what shall we bring” and “there is no present to bring” use forms of בוא, “come.” What they lack is something they can cause to arrive before the man; the verse then turns toward what is already with them.
ALSO GROWS
bôʾ: Come, enter, arrive.
בּוֹא
This is the seed sense beneath “bring”: the action centers on something coming to its destination.
hēḇîʾ: Bring, cause to come.
הֵבִיא
This causative form makes the verse’s repeated question concrete: what can they make arrive as a gift?
אָזַל
ʾāzal
GROWS FROM
אזל
ʾ-z-l
To go away, be gone, or run out.
The Hebrew says the bread has gone from their vessels: depletion is movement, what was there has left. The same root describes power that is gone in Deuteronomy 32:36, so the word reaches beyond food to what has run out of strength.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāzal: Go away, be gone, run out.
אָזַל
The bread is not merely judged insufficient; the word says it is gone from their stores.
ʾozlat yād: The hand’s power is gone.
אָזְלַת יָד
Deuteronomy 32:36 uses the same root for power running out, linking this verse’s empty provisions with depleted strength.
THE PATTERN
When expected provisions run out, the question turns toward what remains present.
And the LORD said to him, What is that in your hand? And he said, A rod.Elisha said to her, What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house? And she said, Your handmaid has nothing in the house, except a pot of oil.There is a lad here, who has five barley loaves, and two small fishes, but what are they among so many?THE THREAD
For the LORD judges his people, and sighs over his servants when he sees that their hand is spent, and none is held or left behind.“Spent” in 1 Samuel and “gone” in Deuteronomy share the Hebrew root אָזַל (ʾāzal), meaning to go away or run out. In both verses, depletion is named directly; here, the question “what have we?” turns toward what remains.
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