What Does 2 Samuel 15:28 Mean?
See, I will tarry in the plains of the wilderness, until there come word from you to tell me.
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
See, I will tarry in the plain of the wilderness, until there come word from you to certify me.THE KEY
The Hebrew makes wilderness (מִדְבָּר, midbār) and word (דָּבָר, dāḇār) echo through the same consonants, joining the place of waiting to what is awaited.
THE MEANING
You are in an exposed, uncertain stretch, staying there until a word reaches you and makes the matter known. The pause is not blank; what happens next depends on something spoken arriving from beyond your present view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that every unknown must be solved by immediate action: here, the next step remains open until a word arrives.
THE ROOT
דָּבָר
dāḇār
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
Speak or utter; a related lexical sense means to drive or lead flocks to pasture.
The awaited word is דָּבָר (dāḇār, “word, matter”), while the wilderness is מִדְבָּר (midbār, “wilderness, open pasture”); both carry the consonants ד־ב־ר. Midbār is commonly linked to the pastoral sense of the root, so the echo joins the open place and the incoming word without making them synonyms.
ALSO GROWS
dibbēr: Spoke, uttered, declared.
דִּבֵּר
This verbal form makes clear that the awaited word is speech arriving, not simply an idea held in the mind.
midbār: Wilderness, open grazing land.
מִדְבָּר
Its consonants echo דָּבָר (dāḇār, “word, matter”); the paired sounds bring the place of waiting close to the message awaited.
לְהַגִּיד
lehaggid
GROWS FROM
נגד
n-g-d
Stand out or be in front; in the causative, make known or declare.
“tell” in this verse is lehaggid. Here, “certify me” is the act of making something known to you. The root also forms words for what stands in front and for a leader at the forefront, as the incoming report brings the next fact into view.
ALSO GROWS
neged: In front of, opposite.
נֶגֶד
The sense of something set before you illuminates how a message brings what was unknown into view.
nagid: Leader, chief.
נָגִיד
This related word carries the sense of one at the front, echoing the report’s role in bringing the next thing forward.
THE PATTERN
In an unfinished interval, waiting holds space for what is not yet visible until a word or reality arrives.
I stretch myself taut for the LORD, my living soul stretches taut, and in his word I hope.And he bent you low, and made you hunger, and fed you with manna, which you had never perceived, nor had your fathers, so that he might make you perceive that humankind does not live by bread alone, but by every word that goes out from the mouth of the LORD does humankind live.But if we hope for what we do not see, then we wait for it by bearing up under it.THE THREAD
I stretch myself taut for the LORD, my living soul stretches taut, and in his word I hope.Psalm 130:5 uses the same noun דָּבָר (dāḇār, “word, matter”) found here, and makes explicit what the waiting can hold: hope in the LORD’s word. The shared root turns the pause toward expectation of something spoken.
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