What Does 2 Samuel 5:13 Mean?
And David took more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem, after he came from Hebron, and there were yet sons and daughters born to David.
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 David took him more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem, after he was come from Hebron: and there were yet sons and daughters born to David.THE KEY
The verse separates royal taking from birth: David acquires wives, while sons and daughters enter the record as those born.
THE MEANING
David’s household grows through two different actions: he takes more concubines and wives, and sons and daughters are born to him. David (דָּוִד, Dawid, beloved) acts, while Jerusalem (יְרוּשָׁלַיִם, Yerushalayim), a name carrying שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness), names the place where this expansion unfolds. The verse holds the king’s agency beside the arrival of a next generation.
THE ROOT
וַיִּוָּלְדוּ
wayyiwwāldû
GROWS FROM
ילד
yalad
to bear, beget, or give birth
The root ילד (yalad, bear or beget) gives rise both to the birth event and to words for the child and the generations that follow. English separates “born” from “sons and daughters,” while Hebrew’s shared root links the birth to the lineage it extends.
ALSO GROWS
yeled: Child or young person.
יֶלֶד
The child’s name grows from the same root as being born, joining the event to the person who arrives through it.
toledot: Generations, descendants, or an account of lineage.
תּוֹלְדוֹת
This branch shows how one birth extends into a continuing line.
וַיִּקַּח
wayyiqqaḥ
GROWS FROM
לקח
laqach
to take or receive
“took” in this verse is wayyiqqaḥ. The root לקח (laqach, take or receive) names David’s deliberate act and also gives לֶקַח (leqaḥ, instruction) its sense of something received. Beside children who are born, this root keeps the women’s acquisition distinct from the next generation’s arrival.
ALSO GROWS
leqaḥ: Instruction or teaching; what is taken in or received.
לֶקַח
This noun makes the root’s receiving sense visible beside David’s act of taking.
nilqaḥ: Was taken or received.
נִלְקַח
This passive form contrasts with David as the one actively taking.
דָּוִד
Dawid
GROWS FROM
דוד
dod
beloved; kin or uncle
David’s name carries the sense of beloved through דוד (dod, beloved); the verse places that name beside a ruler’s act of taking. The name’s intimacy sits beside the reach of royal power in the same sentence.
ALSO GROWS
dod: Beloved; also a male kinsman or uncle.
דּוֹד
This word carries the beloved sense associated with David’s name.
dodim: Expressions of love or affection.
דּוֹדִים
This plural form extends the name’s root into the language of affection.
THE PATTERN
Scripture places descendants in the language of birth and generations, even when human choices shape a household.
And the days of Adam after he brought forth Seth were eight hundred years, and he brought forth sons and daughters.Look, children are the LORD's portion; and the fruit of the womb is a wage.Now Elisabeth's time was filled for her to bring forth, and she brought forth a son.THE THREAD
And the days of Adam after he brought forth Seth were eight hundred years, and he brought forth sons and daughters.The Hebrew root ילד (yalad, bear or beget) underlies “born” here and “begat” in Genesis 5:4, so the different English forms share one seed. That connection places David’s sons and daughters within scripture’s larger language of birth and generations.
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