What Does 2 Samuel 23:6 Mean?
But the sons of Belial are all like thorns thrust away, for no hand can take them.
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
But the sons of Belial shall be all of them as thorns thrust away, because they cannot be taken with hands:THE KEY
Belial means “without benefit,” and the verse gives that worthlessness a shape: thorn-growth no hand can safely gather.
THE MEANING
The verse names what is alive now: what brings no benefit becomes thornlike, wounding the hand that tries to hold it. Its nature cannot be changed by taking hold of it; the harm is revealed in the very act of grasping.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that every harmful thing can be mastered through closer contact or a firmer grip.
THE ROOT
בְּלִיַּעַל
beliyyaʿal
GROWS FROM
יעל
y-ʿ-l
The root יעל (yaʿal) means to be useful or yield benefit; בְּלִיַּעַל (beliyyaʿal, worthlessness) is commonly understood as בְּלִי (belî, without) + יַעַל (yaʿal, usefulness).
“Sons of Belial” carries more than a moral label: Belial names what is without profit or usefulness. The next image gives that barrenness a body, thorn-growth the hand cannot safely gather.
ALSO GROWS
yaʿal: Be useful; yield benefit.
יַעַל
It supplies the sense of usefulness that the name Belial negates.
hōʿîl: Benefit; be useful.
הוֹעִיל
This verbal form makes the root’s idea of yielding benefit concrete.
יִקָּחוּ
yiqqāḥû
GROWS FROM
לקח
l-q-ḥ
The root לקח (lāqaḥ) means to take or receive.
“no hand can take them” in this verse is yiqqāḥû. English “take” can sound like simple physical capture, but this root also reaches into receiving. Here the thorny growth resists being safely grasped and brought into the hand.
ALSO GROWS
lāqaḥ: Take; receive.
לָקַח
It is the root verb behind “taken,” making the failed grasp central to the image.
leqaḥ: Teaching; instruction, what is received.
לֶקַח
This related noun extends “taking” from physical grasp to reception.
THE PATTERN
Thorn growth reveals what cannot be safely gathered and is rejected rather than cultivated.
I will set it as a waste. It shall not be pruned or dug, but briers and thorns shall come up. I will also command the clouds to drop no rain upon it.You will know them by their fruits. Do people gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles?But what bears thorns and thistles fails the test, and is near a curse; its end is the burning.THE THREAD
But what bears thorns and thistles fails the test, and is near a curse; its end is the burning.Hebrews makes explicit the rejection already present in David’s image of thorn-growth that cannot be taken in hand. Together, the verses show the thorn as something recognized by what it bears and not safely gathered.
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