What Does 2 Samuel 14:18 Mean?
Then the king answered and said to the woman, Do not hide from me, I pray you, the word that I ask of you. And the woman said, Let my lord the king now speak.
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 answered and said unto the woman, Hide not from me, I pray thee, the thing that I shall ask thee. And the woman said, Let my lord the king now speak.THE KEY
In Hebrew, the king asks about a *davar* (“thing”) and the woman invites him to *yedabber* (“speak”): the matter and its telling share a root.
THE MEANING
A question can bring a hidden matter toward speech, and an answer can open space for its telling. The verse holds the instant of disclosure: the matter being sought and the act of speaking it meet in one root.
THE ROOT
דָּבָר
dāḇār
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak; the same root also names a word, matter, or thing.
“word” in this verse is dāḇār. Hebrew uses one root for the matter the king asks about and the act of speaking the woman invites. English separates “thing” from “speak,” concealing how closely the verse joins what is hidden with its telling.
ALSO GROWS
dāḇār: Word; matter; thing.
דָּבָר
The king asks about a davar, the matter he wants the woman not to conceal.
yedabbēr: He speaks; let him speak.
יְדַבֵּר
The woman answers by inviting the king to speak, using the same root as the matter he asks about.
THE PATTERN
What is held back can be faced when it is brought into speech.
I make my falling short known to you, and my crookedness I do not cover. I say, I will speak my rebellion into the open before the LORD, and you release the crookedness of my falling short. Selah.Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Is this not the Anointed One?If we speak our shortcomings into the open, he is steady and aligned, to release our shortcomings, and to cleanse us from all crookedness.THE THREAD
By the word of the LORD the heavens are made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.The “word” here is דָּבָר (dāḇār, word), from the same root as the “thing” in the king’s question. The shared root joins matter and speech: a thing can be held in a word and brought forward through speaking.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us