What Does 1 Samuel 1:19 Mean in the King James?

And they rose up in the morning early, and worshipped before the LORD, and returned, and came to their house to Ramah: and Elkanah knew Hannah his wife; and the LORD remembered her.

1 Samuel 1:19 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The LORD’s remembrance of Hannah stands beside her intimate, embodied life.

THE MEANING

Your body and private longing remain within the reach of divine attention; this verse places Elkanah’s intimate knowing beside the LORD’s remembering of Hannah. Remembering here is more than keeping a fact: it is attention directed toward a person.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that what happens in private, or what you wait for in private, falls beyond divine regard. Hannah herself is the one remembered.

THE ROOT

וַיִּזְכְּרֶהָ

wayyizkerēhā

GROWS FROM

ז־כ־ר

Remember, call to mind, mention.

“remembered” in this verse is wayyizkerēhā. The root appears in words for both remembering and mentioning, linking memory with bringing someone into regard. Here Hannah herself is the object of remembrance, and the verse places that attention beside the intimate knowing between spouses.

ALSO GROWS

zikkaron: A memorial or reminder.

זִכָּרוֹן

A memorial keeps someone or something present to remembrance, echoing the attention directed toward Hannah.

hizkir: To mention or bring to mind.

הִזְכִּיר

This form makes the root’s link between remembering and bringing into notice explicit.

וַיֵּדַע

wayyēdaʿ

GROWS FROM

י־ד־ע

Know, recognize, perceive.

“knew” in this verse is wayyēdaʿ. Yada can describe knowing through encounter, and it also names sexual intimacy, as it does here. The word gives the verse an embodied closeness: human intimacy and divine remembrance occupy the same scene without one being made the cause of the other.

ALSO GROWS

daʿat: Knowledge or understanding.

דַּעַת

This noun carries the same root from intimate knowing into knowledge and understanding.

hôdîaʿ: To make known or declare.

הוֹדִיעַ

The causative form shows the root extending from knowing to making something known.

THE PATTERN

Divine remembering is attention that moves toward response.

And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged;

Genesis 8:1 · KJVGod’s remembering is paired with a change in the waters, giving remembrance consequence within the scene.

And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

Exodus 2:24 · KJVRemembering the covenant sits beside hearing the people’s groaning, joining regard with response.

To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant;

Luke 1:72 · KJVRemembering the covenant is expressed as something performed, an attention that reaches into the present.

THE THREAD

And God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her, and opened her womb.

Genesis 30:22 · KJV

The same Hebrew root for “remembered” appears here, now beside hearing and opening. That echo lets remembrance read as attention reaching into a person’s life.

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