What Does 2 Samuel 1:4 Mean?
And David said to him, How went the word? Tell me, I pray you. And he answered, The people have fled from the battle, and many of the people have fallen and died, and Saul and Jonathan his son have died also.
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 David said unto him, How went the matter? I pray thee, tell me. And he answered, That the people are fled from the battle, and many of the people also are fallen and dead; and Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also.THE KEY
The Hebrew for “matter” also means “word,” so the catastrophe reaches David as a spoken report of what has happened.
THE MEANING
Loss can reach you one clause at a time: people flee from battle, many fall and die, and Saul and Jonathan are dead too. The sentence holds mass death and named death together, without letting one blur the other.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The death of a king and his heir is the whole tragedy. The sentence names the fallen people first, then says Saul and Jonathan are dead also, leaving the many in view.
THE ROOT
הַדָּבָר
ha-dābār
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
Speak; a word, matter, or thing.
David asks for “the matter” (דָּבָר, dābār), a noun that can also mean “word”; the answer is the spoken form in which the matter reaches him. This shared sense lets the question hold both event and report together.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: He spoke; said.
דִּבֵּר
The same root forms the act of speaking that carries a matter into the open; David asks for the matter and receives a spoken account.
devarim: Words, matters, things.
דְּבָרִים
The plural keeps speech and events close in one word family; Genesis 15:1 uses it for “these things” before using the same root for “the word of the LORD.”
THE PATTERN
Death is named plainly, while particular people remain visible within the scale of loss.
So Saul died, and his three sons, and the one who lifted up his weapons, and all his men, together on that day.When he drew near to the gate of the city, behold, a dead man was being carried forth, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a great crowd out of the city was with her.Then Jesus said to them in the open, Lazarus has died.THE THREAD
After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, Do not fear, Abram. I am your shield, and your very great wages.Genesis 15:1 repeats the Hebrew root דבר (d-b-r): “these things” is הַדְּבָרִים (ha-devarim), and “the word of the LORD” is דְּבַר־יְהוָה (devar-YHWH). The same root holds what has happened and what is spoken, echoing David’s question about the matter and the report that answers him.
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