What Does 1 Samuel 1:15 Mean in the King James?
And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the LORD.
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 verse’s “soul” means the whole living self, so what is poured before the LORD is not a fragment of Hannah but her whole person.
THE MEANING
The verse lets you distinguish intense grief from intoxication: distress can be visible and still be truthfully named. Its Hebrew language holds inward strain in the image of breath and wind, while “soul” names a living person. The whole self is poured out before the LORD.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the claim that intense or visible grief proves intoxication or spiritual failure; anguish can be named on its own terms.
THE ROOT
אֶשְׁפֹּךְ
ʾeshpōkh
GROWS FROM
שׁפך
To pour out or spill.
This verb pictures the contents leaving their vessel; it means more than simply speaking or reporting. Here what is poured out is Hannah’s whole living self, with nothing held back from the LORD.
ALSO GROWS
shaphakh dam: To pour out blood.
שָׁפַךְ דָּם
The same verb can describe life spilled violently, showing the force of the image; here the thing poured out is Hannah’s living self.
ʾeshpōkh siḥi: I pour out my complaint.
אֶשְׁפֹּךְ שִׂיחִי
This same-root phrase in Psalm 142:2 gives complaint the shape of something fully brought into God’s presence.
נַפְשִׁי
nafshi
GROWS FROM
נפש
A living being or self; the word also reaches into life and appetite.
“soul” in this verse is nafshi. Nafshi means “my living self,” not merely an isolated inner part. Hannah pours her whole animated person, including her distress and desire, before the LORD.
ALSO GROWS
nefesh ḥayyah: A living being or creature.
נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה
The phrase in Genesis 2:7 uses the same word for a living person, illuminating the fullness of what Hannah pours out.
baʿal nefesh: A person given to appetite.
בַּעַל נֶפֶשׁ
In Proverbs 23:2, the same word reaches into appetite, showing that nefesh can name the living self in its wanting as well as its life.
רוּחַ
ruach
GROWS FROM
רוח
To blow or breathe; breath, wind, and inward disposition.
The phrase behind “sorrowful spirit” is קְשַׁת־רוּחַ (qeshet-ruach, “hard or strained of spirit/breath”): קְשַׁת (qeshet, hard or strained) modifies רוּחַ (ruach, breath, wind, or inward disposition). The same Hebrew word can name moving air and inner life, giving Hannah’s grief a felt strain rather than making it an abstract condition.
ALSO GROWS
ruach: Wind.
רוּחַ
This is the same word used for wind, showing that the inward condition in Hannah’s phrase shares its word with moving air.
ruach ḥayyim: Breath of life.
רוּחַ חַיִּים
The phrase uses ruach for life-breath, keeping the word’s bodily sense present alongside its meaning of inward state.
ruach nakhon: A right or steadfast spirit.
רוּחַ נָכוֹן
Here ruach names an inward disposition, the same dimension of a person that Hannah describes as strained.
THE PATTERN
Distress that weighs on the inward life is poured into God’s presence rather than hidden or reduced to composure.
Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah.Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street.Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.THE THREAD
Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah.The Hebrew verb translated “pour out” comes from the same root in both verses, and Psalm 62:8 pairs it with the same posture: pouring the inner life before God. What Hannah expresses is recognizable as trust given a voice, with the whole inward life brought into God’s presence.
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