What Does 2 Samuel 2:21 Mean?
And Abner said to him, Bend aside to your right hand or to your left, and seize one of the young men, and take his gear. But Asahel would not turn aside from following him.
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 Abner said to him, Turn thee aside to thy right hand or to thy left, and lay thee hold on one of the young men, and take thee his armour. But Asahel would not turn aside from following of him.THE KEY
English repeats “turn aside,” but Hebrew gives Abner a verb for bending toward another target and Asahel a different verb for departing from the man he follows.
THE MEANING
Abner tells Asahel to angle toward a young man and take his armor; Asahel stays on Abner’s trail instead. The pursuit is violent, and the verse leaves that violence plain. Their names carry images into the scene: Abner (אַבְנֵר, Avner, “father of light”) speaks, while Asahel (עֲשָׂהאֵל, Asahel, “God has made”) holds his course.
THE ROOT
לָסוּר
lasur
GROWS FROM
סור
To turn aside, depart, or remove.
Asahel’s verb is סוּר (sur, “depart or turn aside”), while Abner’s command uses נְטֵה (neteh, “incline or turn”) from נטה (natah, “stretch or incline”). English makes them sound like the same movement, but the Hebrew distinguishes leaving the pursuit from changing its direction.
ALSO GROWS
sur: To leave a position or path.
סוּר
Asahel refuses to leave Abner’s trail.
hesir: To cause something to be removed.
הֵסִיר
The same root can describe removal, giving Asahel’s refusal the force of not separating from the pursuit.
נְטֵה
neteh
GROWS FROM
נטה
To stretch, extend, incline, or turn aside.
“bend aside” in this verse is neteh. Abner’s command asks Asahel to angle toward a different young man. This root’s sense of stretching or extending makes the order a bodily redirection, distinct from the departure named in Asahel’s refusal.
ALSO GROWS
natah: To extend or angle something.
נָטָה
Abner’s command turns Asahel’s movement toward another target.
matteh: A staff; also a tribal division.
מַטֶּה
This related word carries the sense of something extended, echoing the change in direction Abner orders.
מֵאַחֲרָיו
me’acharav
GROWS FROM
אחר
After, behind, or later.
The KJV’s “following of him” retains a spatial image: Asahel is behind Abner, pursuing him. The same root also describes what comes afterward, linking this chase to other passages that speak of following as a path taken after someone.
ALSO GROWS
acharei: Positioned behind someone or occurring after something.
אַחֲרֵי
This is the form used for “ran after Elijah” in 1 Kings 19:20.
acharit: What comes later or at the end.
אַחֲרִית
It extends the root’s sense of “after” from space into time.
THE PATTERN
A direction becomes visible in what a person keeps following and what they refuse to turn toward.
And it came to pass, when they had brought them outside, that he said, Escape for your living soul. Do not look behind you, and do not stand still anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountain, lest you be swept away.And Jesus said to him, No one who lays a hand to the plow and looks back is well placed for the governance of God.I pursue toward the mark, for the prize of the calling of God from above, in Jesus the Anointed One.THE THREAD
And he let go of the oxen, and ran after Elijah, and said, "Let me, please, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will walk after you." And he said to him, "Go, turn back, for what have I done to you?"“Ran after Elijah” uses אַחֲרֵי (acharei, “after or behind”), from אחר (ʾ-ḥ-r, “after or behind”), the same root as Asahel’s מֵאַחֲרָיו (me’acharav, “from behind him”). The verse places that same language of following beside a permitted return, making the shared root’s path visible in both pursuit and redirection.
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