What Does 1 Chronicles 10:1 Mean in the King James?
Now the Philistines fought against Israel; and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gilboa.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Hebrew for “slain” carries the sense of “pierced,” making defeat visible as wounds in bodies rather than an abstract loss.
THE MEANING
You meet defeat here as a bodily event: the men flee, and the mountain is where their slain bodies fall. The verse holds retreat and death in the same frame, so flight does not erase the cost.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that escaping danger always means escaping its consequences; here flight and death unfold together.
THE ROOT
חֲלָלִים
ḥălālîm
GROWS FROM
חלל
ḥ-l-l
To pierce or wound; as a noun, a pierced or slain person.
The Hebrew keeps the wound inside the word translated “slain.” These are not merely the defeated; they are bodies marked by violence.
ALSO GROWS
ḥālal: To pierce or wound
חָלַל
This verbal sense reveals the bodily image carried by “slain.”
ḥālāl: A pierced or wounded person; a slain person
חָלָל
The plural in this verse names casualties as people, not simply a tally of defeat.
וַיָּנֻסוּ
wayyānusū
GROWS FROM
נוס
n-w-s
To flee or escape.
“fled” in this verse is wayyānusū. The same root can name flight and a place of escape. Here the men flee, but the verse does not show that flight becoming refuge.
ALSO GROWS
mānôs: Refuge; a place of escape
מָנוֹס
This branch makes the contrast sharp: escape can be refuge, but this verse ends with the men fallen.
mənūsāh: Flight or escape
מְנוּסָה
The noun names the condition set in motion by the verb: a people on the run.
וַיִּפְּלוּ
wayyippəlū
GROWS FROM
נפל
n-p-l
To fall, descend, or collapse.
“fell” in this verse is wayyippəlū. The fall is the second movement in the verse: first the men flee, then they fall. The same root can describe a downfall, carrying the scene from bodily motion into collective collapse.
ALSO GROWS
nāphal: To fall or descend
נָפַל
This is the verb beneath the men’s movement onto the ground.
mappālāh: A downfall or ruin
מַפָּלָה
This branch shows how a physical fall can name a wider collapse.
THE PATTERN
When threat overwhelms a group, Scripture renders defeat through bodies turning back, fleeing, and falling.
And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth.Thou makest us to turn back from the enemy: and they which hate us spoil for themselves.And they all forsook him, and fled.THE THREAD
So Saul died for his transgression which he committed against the LORD, even against the word of the LORD, which he kept not, and also for asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to enquire of it; And enquired not of the LORD: therefore he slew him, and turned the kingdom unto David the son of Jesse.The battlefield shows bodies falling; these lines disclose the breach the battle alone cannot show: Saul does not keep the LORD’s word and does not enquire of him. The passage moves from visible collapse to the allegiance beneath it.
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