What Does 1 Samuel 1:13 Mean in the King James?
Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard: therefore Eli thought she had been drunken.
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
Hannah’s words are already speech before they become sound; the verse treats voice as what carries an utterance into another person’s hearing.
THE MEANING
Your inward words are speech even when no one else can hear them. Someone may see your lips move and mistake what is happening, because visible movement does not reveal what the heart is saying. Eli’s conclusion is real, but it does not give him access to Hannah’s words.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that silent words are not real speech, and the assumption that another person’s visible gestures reveal the meaning of their inner life.
THE ROOT
מְדַבֶּרֶת
medabberet
GROWS FROM
ד־ב־ר
d-b-r
The root means to speak or declare; this feminine participle means “speaking.”
“spake” in this verse is medabberet. The Hebrew uses the ordinary speaking verb מְדַבֶּרֶת (medabberet, speaking), then separately says her קוֹל (qol, voice or sound) is not heard. The words are already speech before they become sound another person can receive.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word; matter; thing.
דָּבָר
The same root connects a word with the matter or thing expressed: Hannah’s inward speech carries content even without sound.
dibber: Spoke; declared.
דִּבֵּר
This speaking form shows that the verse names Hannah’s act as speech, not merely as silent thought.
שְׂפָתֶיהָ
sephateha
GROWS FROM
ש־פ־ה
sh-p-h
The root names a lip or edge; this form means “her lips.”
The same Hebrew root names lips, language, and an edge. Hannah’s lips move at speech’s edge, but her voice does not reach what Eli can hear; what he sees is not enough to know what she says.
ALSO GROWS
safah: Lip; language.
שָׂפָה
The shared word for lip and language links the mouth’s boundary with the words it carries.
sefat hayam: Shore or edge of the sea.
שְׂפַת הַיָּם
This use of the same root for an edge makes the lips a threshold: Hannah’s words reach them, though they do not cross into audible voice.
THE PATTERN
A person’s inaudible inner words remain real speech even when another observer misreads the visible signs.
For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.Then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and give to every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest; (for thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men;)Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.THE THREAD
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.Both verses bring the heart and the mouth into one field: Hannah speaks in her heart while her lips move, and the psalm places mouth-words beside heart-meditation. They share the heart-root לֵבָב (levav, heart or inner center), so the mouth’s silence does not make the heart’s utterance unreal.
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