What Does 2 Samuel 13:31 Mean?
Then the king rose, and tore his garments, and lay down upon the ground, and all his servants stood by with their garments torn.
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 the king arose, and tare his garments, and lay on the earth; and all his servants stood by with their clothes rent.THE KEY
The Hebrew repeats one root for the king’s tearing and the servants’ torn clothes, making his grief audible across the whole scene.
THE MEANING
When devastating news reaches you, grief can rise through the body, tear the clothing, and bring the body down to earth. The rupture becomes shared as those beside you wear torn garments too. The verse leaves grief bodily and public.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that grief must remain composed and private: the king’s body and the servants’ clothing make it visible.
THE ROOT
וַיִּקְרַע
vayyiqraʿ
GROWS FROM
קרע
to tear, rend, split open
“tore his garments” in this verse is vayyiqraʿ. The verse uses this root first for the king’s act (וַיִּקְרַע, vayyiqraʿ: “he tore”) and again for the servants’ torn condition (קְרֻעִים, qeruʿim: “torn”). English gives two forms, “tare” and “rent,” while Hebrew makes one rupture audible across the scene: his grief is echoed in the garments around him.
ALSO GROWS
qeraʿ: a tear or rent
קֶרַע
The noun names the opening left by tearing, making the king’s grief legible in the damaged garment.
qeruʿim: torn, rent
קְרֻעִים
This is the same root describing the servants’ clothes, extending the king’s rupture through the people standing beside him.
THE PATTERN
When words cannot contain a rupture, torn clothing gives the response a visible, public form.
And Jacob tore his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days.Then Job rose up, and tore his robe, and shaved his head, and fell to the ground, and bowed down.But when the sent ones, Barnabas and Paul, heard of it, they tore their garments and leapt into the crowd, crying out,THE THREAD
And Jacob tore his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days.The same Hebrew root, קרע (qaraʿ, to tear), describes Jacob tearing his garment when he believes Joseph is dead and the torn condition of the servants’ garments here. In both scenes, clothing becomes the visible surface of grief too large to stay inward.
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