What Does 2 Samuel 5:18 Mean?
And the Philistines came and spread out in the valley of Rephaim.
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
The Philistines also came and spread themselves in the valley of Rephaim.THE KEY
The verb translated “spread themselves” belongs to a Hebrew root also used for “cast off,” joining expansion and abandonment within one root-family.
THE MEANING
Opposition can arrive and occupy the open ground before any answer appears. The Philistines spread across the valley, and the outcome remains unstated.
THE ROOT
וַיִּנָּטְשׁוּ
wayyinnāṭəšū
GROWS FROM
נטש
n-ṭ-sh
To leave, abandon, or cast off; in this form, to spread out.
“spread out” in this verse is wayyinnāṭəšū. The same root can describe spreading out here and casting off elsewhere. English gives those actions separate words, while Hebrew holds them in one root-family, extension and relinquishment sharing a seed.
ALSO GROWS
wayyinnāṭəšū: They spread themselves out.
וַיִּנָּטְשׁוּ
This is the form used for the Philistines occupying the valley.
yiṭṭōš: He casts off or abandons.
יִטֹּשׁ
Psalm 94:14 uses this form for what the LORD will not do to his people, showing the same root in a different branch of meaning.
THE PATTERN
A conflict becomes visible when force gathers into a place before the encounter.
And the Philistines stood on a mountain on this side, and Israel stood on a mountain across, and there was a valley between them.A roar, a roar in the valley of the cutting, for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of the cutting.And he gathers them together into the place called, in the Hebrew tongue, Armageddon.THE THREAD
For the LORD will not cast off his people, and will not let go of his inheritance.The Hebrew verb translated “cast off” is from the same root as “spread themselves” in this verse. English separates the Philistines’ spreading from the refusal to abandon, while Hebrew connects both meanings in one root-family.
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