What Does 2 Samuel 3:17 Mean?
And Abner spoke to the elders of Israel, saying, Yesterday and the day before, you were seeking David to be king over you.
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 had communication with the elders of Israel, saying, Ye sought for David in times past to be king over you:THE KEY
The people’s search is remembered as a search for David, the beloved, so the verse binds authority to the nature carried in his name.
THE MEANING
A longing for the beloved to govern can be present before it has a voice. Spoken words can uncover a desire already carried within and bring it into the shared matter at hand.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that a desire begins only when it is spoken: the words reveal a search already underway.
THE ROOT
דָּוִד
Dāwîḏ
GROWS FROM
דוד
d-w-d
Beloved; dear one.
English hears David as a personal name; the Hebrew name is commonly linked to דּוֹד (dod), beloved. That makes the people’s desire more intimate: they seek a particular beloved figure to govern them, not kingship as an abstraction.
ALSO GROWS
dod: Beloved one; also used for an uncle.
דּוֹד
This related word brings the name’s beloved quality into view.
dodim: Loves or caresses, in poetic usage.
דּוֹדִים
This poetic form keeps the root’s association with love close to the name David.
מְבַקְשִׁים
mevaqqeshim
GROWS FROM
בקש
b-q-sh
Seek, search for, request.
“you were seeking” in this verse is mevaqqeshim. The Hebrew form describes an ongoing seeking: they were seeking David. This root joins desire with movement toward its object, holding an inner longing and an outward search together.
ALSO GROWS
mevaqqesh: One who seeks.
מְבַקֵּשׁ
The participle shares the verse’s sense of seeking as an active orientation.
biqqesh: He sought or requested.
בִּקֵּשׁ
The verb can carry both searching and asking, linking the people’s desire with a request for rule.
דְּבַר
devar
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
Speak; word or matter.
“spoke” in this verse is devar. English communication captures an exchange; the Hebrew also lets you hear davar, word and matter in one noun. Abner’s speaking places the people’s earlier desire before the elders as the matter under discussion.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
The same word can name both what is spoken and the matter being discussed.
dibber: He spoke.
דִּבֵּר
This verbal form connects the spoken message to the word that carries it.
THE PATTERN
A people’s desire for a ruler becomes visible when recognition is spoken together.
Also in time past, when Saul was king over us, you were the one who led Israel out and brought Israel in. The LORD said to you, You shall shepherd my people Israel, and you shall be the one who stands at the front over Israel.All these men of war, who set the line in order, came to Hebron with a whole heart, to make David king over all Israel; and all the remnant of Israel also were of one heart to make David king.The crowds that went before him, and those that followed, cried out, saying, Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the nature of the LORD. Hosanna in the highest!THE THREAD
But all Israel and Judah loved David, because he went out and came in before their faces.This verse lets the beloved quality carried in David’s name ring through the people’s own response: all Israel and Judah loved him. Here the beloved is also the one they seek to govern them.
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