What Does 2 Samuel 14:19 Mean?
And the king said, Is not the hand of Joab with you in all this? And the woman answered and said, As your living soul lives, my lord the king, no one can turn to the right hand or to the left from any word my lord the king has spoken. For your servant Joab, he commanded me, and he set all these words in the mouth of your handmaid.
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 king said, Is not the hand of Joab with thee in all this? And the woman answered and said, As thy soul liveth, my lord the king, none can turn to the right hand or to the left from ought that my lord the king hath spoken: for thy servant Joab, he bade me, and he put all these words in the mouth of thine handmaid:THE KEY
A mouth can carry one person’s words while another person’s hand directs them.
THE MEANING
The king detects Joab’s hand behind the woman’s answer, and she names Joab as the source who placed the words in her mouth. The voice and the authorship are distinct: speech can sound like one person’s while carrying another’s intent.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Hearing words from someone’s mouth does not prove that the words originate with them.
THE ROOT
דִּבֶּר
dibbēr
GROWS FROM
דבר
Speak; word or matter.
“word” in this verse is dibbēr. The king’s “spoken” words and Joab’s “words” share the same root, דבר (d-b-r). Hebrew holds speech and its content in one family: what is spoken is the very matter being placed in the woman’s mouth.
ALSO GROWS
dibbēr: He spoke.
דִּבֵּר
The king’s speech belongs to the same root as the words Joab supplies; both are speech with an identifiable source.
dābār: Word; matter or thing.
דָּבָר
The English separates speaking from “words,” while this shared root links the utterance to the matter carried through the woman’s mouth.
THE PATTERN
Words placed in a mouth can disclose the will of the one who set them there.
And you will speak to him, and set the words in his mouth. And I will be with your mouth, and with his mouth, and I will instruct you both in what you will do.Then the LORD stretched out his hand and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me, Look, I have set my words in your mouth.For I have not spoken from myself, but the Father who sent me has given me a command, what I should say and what I should speak.THE THREAD
Then the LORD stretched out his hand and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me, Look, I have set my words in your mouth.Jeremiah uses the same root, דבר (d-b-r), for the words placed in the mouth, closely echoing this verse’s wording. Here the woman names Joab as their source; Jeremiah names the LORD, showing that a mouth alone does not reveal whose words it carries.
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