What Does 2 Samuel 11:5 Mean?
And the woman conceived, and sent and told David, and said, "I am with child."
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 the woman conceived, and sent and told David, and said, I am with child.THE KEY
The announcement is not a second fact: Hebrew repeats the root of conception, making the pregnancy itself the message.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks to the moment when what is forming within a body can no longer stay private. The woman sends David a direct statement, and Hebrew repeats the conception-root in both “conceived” and “with child.” What began unseen is now spoken plainly to the person implicated in it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that a private act can remain consequence-free dissolves when what was hidden becomes a message David must receive.
THE ROOT
וַתַּהַר
vattahar
GROWS FROM
ה־ר־ה
H-R-H
Conceive; be pregnant.
“conceived / with child” in this verse is vattahar. The same three consonants appear first in “she conceived” and again in “pregnant am I.” English makes these sound like separate facts, while Hebrew holds the beginning and the present condition together.
ALSO GROWS
vattahar: A feminine verb form meaning “and she conceived.”
וַתַּהַר
It names the beginning of the pregnancy that the message now makes known.
hārāh: A form meaning “pregnant.”
הָרָה
It names the condition that has taken shape from the conception.
hērāyôn: Pregnancy or gestation.
הֵרָיוֹן
This related noun keeps the same root’s connection to carrying a conception toward its outcome.
וַתִּשְׁלַח
vattishlaḥ
GROWS FROM
ש־ל־ח
sh-l-ḥ
Send forth; in some forms, send away or release.
“sent and told” in this verse is vattishlaḥ. This root carries both sending forth and sending away. The woman’s message sends the truth of what her body carries out of concealment and into David’s hearing.
ALSO GROWS
shālaḥ: To send or dispatch.
שָׁלַח
This is the root verb behind the woman’s action of sending a message.
shillēaḥ: To send away or let go.
שִׁלֵּחַ
This form reveals the root’s wider sense of sending something out from where it was held.
shālūaḥ: Someone who has been sent.
שָׁלוּחַ
The root also names the one who carries a message outward.
דָּוִד
Dāwîd
GROWS FROM
ד־ו־ד
d-w-d
Beloved; dear one.
David’s name carries the sense of “beloved.” Here, the named recipient of the message must face the woman’s plain, embodied truth; the name’s tenderness does not blur the fact placed before him.
ALSO GROWS
dōd: A beloved person or lover; in some contexts, an uncle.
דּוֹד
This is the name’s root sense, held beside David’s role as the message’s recipient.
dōdîm: Expressions of love or intimacy.
דּוֹדִים
This related form brings the language of intimacy near the bodily consequence named in the verse.
THE PATTERN
What begins concealed in conception develops toward an outcome that becomes visible and must be named.
Behold, he writhes with crookedness, conceives toil, and gives birth to falsehood.Then craving, when it has conceived, gives birth to falling short; and falling short, when it is full-grown, bears death.And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son, and you will call his name Jesus.THE THREAD
Behold, he writhes with crookedness, conceives toil, and gives birth to falsehood.Psalm 7:14 uses the same Hebrew root ה־ר־ה (H-R-H, conceive or be pregnant) found twice here. The psalm uses conception as an image for harm taking shape; alongside this verse, it makes the hidden beginning and the outcome it carries impossible to dismiss.
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