What Does 2 Samuel 21:1 Mean?
And there was hunger in the days of David, three years, year after year, and David sought the LORD. And the LORD answered, It is upon Saul, and upon his house of blood, because he struck down the Gibeonites.
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 there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David enquired of the LORD. And the LORD answered, It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites.THE KEY
The famine becomes a question whose answer names the bloodshed behind it.
THE MEANING
Recurring lack is not self-explanatory in this verse: David seeks the LORD’s face, and the answer identifies Saul’s house and the Gibeonites he killed. Here the famine is bound to bloodshed, and the victims remain visible in the reason given.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that once the killing stops, its cost stops with it.
THE ROOT
הֵמִית
hēmît
GROWS FROM
מות
To die; in this causative form, to cause someone to die.
“struck down” in this verse is hēmît. The Hebrew verb presents Saul as causing death, and the verse names the Gibeonites as those who died. It holds the act and its victims together instead of leaving the cause as a vague stain on the household.
ALSO GROWS
mût: To die
מוּת
This basic form keeps the action tied to death itself.
māwet: Death
מָוֶת
The noun makes explicit the outcome contained in the verb translated “slew.”
וַיְבַקֵּשׁ
wayvaqqēš
GROWS FROM
בקש
To seek, search for, or request.
The Hebrew says David “sought” the face of the LORD: his inquiry is a movement toward presence, not merely a request for information. The answer names a cause buried beneath the visible famine.
ALSO GROWS
mevaqqēsh: One who seeks; a seeker
מְבַקֵּשׁ
The seeker form shows that this root describes a directed search, like David’s turning toward the LORD.
baqqashah: Request or petition
בַּקָּשָׁה
The same root carries seeking into a request, illuminating how David’s search receives a direct answer.
רָעָב
raʿāv
GROWS FROM
רעב
Hunger.
The word for famine shares its root with the word for being hungry, holding widespread deprivation and bodily hunger in one family. “Year after year” makes that hunger persistent, and the answer names the bloodshed tied to it.
ALSO GROWS
raʿēv: Hungry
רָעֵב
This form names the hungry person; the famine is the same root expressed across the land.
raʿāv: Hunger or famine
רָעָב
The noun turns hunger into the condition that persists through the repeated years.
THE PATTERN
Violence and exploitation leave a cry that reaches God even when the harm seems past or buried.
And the LORD said, What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.Look, the wages of the workers who mowed your fields, stripped away by your fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have gone into the ears of the LORD of hosts.And they cry out with a great voice, saying, How long, Set-Apart and true Master, will you not judge and avenge our blood against those who settle upon the earth?THE THREAD
When you say, Seek my face; my heart says to you, Your face, LORD, I will seek.The word translated “enquired” in 2 Samuel and “seek” in this verse share the root בקש. Psalm 27 makes the seeking of the LORD’s face a direct exchange, opening the way to hear David’s inquiry as a search that receives an answer.
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