What Does 2 Samuel 14:13 Mean?
And the woman said, Why have you devised such a thing against the people of God? For in speaking this word, the king is as one who is guilty, in that he does not turn back his outcast.
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 said, Wherefore then hast thou thought such a thing against the people of God? for the king doth speak this thing as one which is faulty, in that the king doth not fetch home again his banished.THE KEY
Being driven away does not erase belonging: the verse calls the king’s refusal to bring the banished back a matter of guilt.
THE MEANING
You can name someone as belonging to God and still leave them outside. The verse exposes that split: when the king does not bring back the one who has been driven away, his refusal is called guilty.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Banishment does not cancel belonging or make a person beyond return.
THE ROOT
נִדָּחוֹ
niddāḥô
GROWS FROM
נדח
n-d-ḥ
to thrust away, drive away
“outcast” in this verse is niddāḥô. The word describes someone as driven away, keeping the act of exclusion visible inside the description of the person. The verse still names this displaced person as belonging to God’s people, so being driven away has not erased that claim.
ALSO GROWS
nāḏaḥ: to drive away, thrust aside
נָדַח
The verb shows that banishment is something done to a person, not the whole of who that person is.
nidḥê: outcasts, people driven away
נִדְחֵי
The same word family names Israel’s outcasts as people who can be gathered together.
הָשִׁיב
hāshîv
GROWS FROM
שוב
sh-w-b
to turn back, return
“turn back” in this verse is hāshîv. The Hebrew verb has the king cause a return: he is to turn the banishment back. The verse presents restoration as more than a change of location; it is the reversal of being driven away.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: to return, turn back
שׁוּב
This basic form holds the idea of turning back that underlies the king’s act of bringing someone home.
hēshîv: to bring back, restore
הֵשִׁיב
This causative form makes the king responsible for enabling the return, rather than merely waiting for it.
כְּאָשֵׁם
ke’āshēm
GROWS FROM
אשם
ʾ-sh-m
to incur guilt, be liable
“guilty” in this verse is ke’āshēm. The woman calls the king culpable for not bringing back the banished; the word carries the weight of liability, not just a vague flaw. The same root also names guilt and the offering associated with it.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāshēm: guilty, liable
אָשֵׁם
This form makes clear that the charge falls on the one responsible for the refusal.
ʾāshām: guilt; also, a guilt offering
אָשָׁם
The related noun keeps culpability connected to accountability for what has been done.
THE PATTERN
Being driven away does not erase belonging; the scattered can still be gathered and brought back.
If any of yours are driven away to the outermost edge of heaven, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there he will take you.I will seek the one who lost the way, and bring back the driven away, and bind up the broken, and hold up the sick. But the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with judgment.For this son of mine was dead, and is living again; he had lost his way, and is found." And they began to be glad.THE THREAD
I will seek the one who lost the way, and bring back the driven away, and bind up the broken, and hold up the sick. But the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with judgment.The phrase “that which was driven away” uses the same root, נדח (n-d-ḥ), meaning “to drive away,” as “banished” here. The shared root makes the connection precise: the one named by displacement is the one sought and brought back.
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