What Does 2 Samuel 3:37 Mean?
For all the people and all Israel perceived that day that it was not from the king to put Abner the son of Ner to death.
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
For all the people and all Israel understood that day that it was not of the king to slay Abner the son of Ner.THE KEY
The whole people recognize that a killing can happen within a king’s reach without coming from the king.
THE MEANING
A whole people recognizes the boundary between a king’s authority and the source of a killing. The verse speaks now wherever blame gathers around the nearest authority: nearness to power does not by itself make that authority the source. The people’s shared knowing names a limit, the king is not the source of Abner’s death.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A killing within a ruler’s reach must have been ordered by that ruler.
THE ROOT
וַיֵּדְעוּ
vayyēdeʿu
GROWS FROM
ידע
y-d-ʿ
To know, recognize, or perceive.
“perceived” in this verse is vayyēdeʿu. English “understood” can sound like a conclusion formed in the mind; Hebrew uses yadaʿ, “know” or “perceive,” and gives that recognition to all the people and all Israel. The verse emphasizes their shared perception of the killing’s source.
ALSO GROWS
yādaʿ: To know or perceive.
יָדַע
The same verb root names the people’s recognition of who did not cause the killing.
yōdēaʿ: One who knows.
יוֹדֵעַ
This form from the same root makes knowing an active perception, not merely a piece of information.
לְהָמִית
lehamit
GROWS FROM
מות
m-w-t
To die; in the causative form here, to cause to die.
“put Abner the son of Ner to death” in this verse is lehamit. The Hebrew verb is causative: it names causing someone to die. The verse does not soften the act; it states that this cause of death does not come from the king.
ALSO GROWS
mōt: To die.
מוֹת
This verb from the same root makes explicit the death that the causative form brings about.
māwet: Death.
מָוֶת
The noun from the same root keeps the focus on the concrete outcome named in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Public recognition can distinguish a ruler’s authority from the source of a particular act.
And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged; and they feared the king, for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him, to do judgment.Men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man shown forth by God among you through works of strength and wonders and signs, which God did through him in the midst of you, as you yourselves also know.THE THREAD
For the LORD perceives the way of the aligned, but the way of the wicked loses its way.Psalm 1:6 uses the same root, ידע (y-d-ʿ), “know or perceive.” Here all Israel perceives the source of one act; the Psalm widens that knowing to the path the LORD perceives.
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