What Does 1 Chronicles 19:4 Mean in the King James?
Wherefore Hanun took David’s servants, and shaved them, and cut off their garments in the midst hard by their buttocks, and sent them away.
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 sending carries the humiliation outward: the men leave with the exposure still upon them.
THE MEANING
The verse makes bodily humiliation visible as a deliberate act: these men’s hair and clothing are changed to expose them, then they are sent away while still marked by it. Departure does not undo the injury; the exposure travels with the person.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being sent away after public humiliation does not mean the humiliation is over or the person has been restored.
THE ROOT
וַיְשַׁלְּחֵם
vayeshalleḥēm
GROWS FROM
שׁלח
To send forth, dispatch, or release.
“sent them away” in this verse is vayeshalleḥēm. The verse ends with a sending, but the men are dispatched after being exposed and dishonored. The same root can carry the sense of release; here, being sent away does not itself restore what was violated.
ALSO GROWS
shaliach: Messenger or emissary; one who is sent.
שָׁלִיחַ
This branch makes the shared idea visible: a person can be sent out carrying what they have been given, including, here, the humiliation imposed on them.
Shiloach: The name of the waters of Shiloah, understood as sent waters.
שִׁלֹחַ
This branch connects sending with waters that flow outward; the verse’s sending, by contrast, leaves the men exposed rather than restoring them.
וַיִּכְרֹת
wayyikrot
GROWS FROM
כרת
To cut or sever.
“cut off” in this verse is wayyikrot. The verb describes a real cutting of the garments that exposes the men. The same root appears in the phrase for cutting a covenant, showing the root’s range without making this act a covenant: here, the cut serves humiliation.
ALSO GROWS
karat berit: To cut a covenant.
כָּרַת בְּרִית
The same cut-root can name the act of making a covenant; here it is used to damage clothing and expose bodies, a sharply different use of cutting.
karet: Cut off or excluded.
כָּרֵת
This branch carries severance into the idea of being cut off, echoing how the men are sent away after the act that marks them.
THE PATTERN
Clothing can mediate bodily dignity: forced exposure weaponizes vulnerability, while covering can preserve it.
And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness.So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots.THE THREAD
He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.The same Hebrew sending root appears here beside healing: what is sent restores, while Hanun’s sending leaves the men exposed. The shared root sharpens the contrast without making every act of sending a release into wholeness.
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