What Does 2 Samuel 15:33 Mean?
And David said to him, If you cross over with me, then you will be a load upon 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
Unto whom David said, If thou passest on with me, then thou shalt be a burden unto me:THE KEY
The Hebrew calls this companion a load laid on the speaker to carry, so closeness and added weight occupy the same sentence.
THE MEANING
This verse names the difference between closeness and support: someone can be beside the reader and still add weight to what the reader is carrying. The relationship matters, and the shared road can still be too much.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that loyalty automatically makes someone’s presence helpful; here, traveling together would add to the speaker’s load.
THE ROOT
מַשָּׂא
massa
GROWS FROM
נשא
To lift, carry, or bear.
The word for “burden” grows from the root נשא (nasa), “to carry.” The load is inseparable from the act of bearing it: the strain lies in what must be carried along.
ALSO GROWS
nasa: Lift, carry, bear.
נָשָׂא
This verb makes the root inside “burden” visible: a burden is something borne.
nose avon: Bearing crookedness; an expression used for forgiving or removing it.
נֹשֵׂא עָוֹן
The same carrying-root can describe bearing another’s crookedness, showing that what weighs on someone can also be carried away.
דָּוִד
Dawid
GROWS FROM
דוד
Beloved; beloved one.
David’s name carries the sense of “beloved.” That relational nature sits beside the blunt recognition that affection does not make every shared journey easy to bear.
ALSO GROWS
dod: Beloved, lover; also uncle.
דּוֹד
The root makes the name’s language of affection audible in this exchange.
dodim: Loves or caresses.
דּוֹדִים
This related word keeps affection in view alongside the verse’s plain assessment of weight.
THE PATTERN
Presence affects capacity: it can add weight to one person’s load or help bear the load in common.
You will surely wither, both you and this people with you, for this word is too heavy for you; you are not able to do it alone."I cannot carry all this people alone, for it is too heavy for me."Carry one another's weights, and so you fill up the instruction of the Anointed One.THE THREAD
Surely he has borne our sicknesses, and carried our wounds. Yet we reckoned him struck, beaten by God, and bowed low.The verb translated “borne” is נָשָׂא (nasa), the root that forms מַשָּׂא (massa), “burden,” in this verse. Here, a companion adds weight to the speaker; Isaiah turns the same carrying-root toward bearing what weighs on others.
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