What Does 1 Samuel 13:5 Mean in the King James?
And the Philistines gathered themselves together to fight with Israel, thirty thousand chariots, and six thousand horsemen, and people as the sand which is on the sea shore in multitude: and they came up, and pitched in Michmash, eastward from Beth-aven.
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 makes the threat feel both countable in weapons and too vast to count in people.
THE MEANING
When threat gathers around you, its pressure can come as a countable inventory and as a scale too large to hold in mind. Here the danger has advanced to a named place, so the fear is both enormous and concrete.
THE ROOT
נֶאֶסְפוּ
ne'esfu
GROWS FROM
אָסַף
ʾ-s-p
to gather, collect, or bring together
“gathered themselves together” in this verse is ne'esfu. The army does not appear as one natural body: it is gathered, many becoming one force. The same root can name a harvest’s ingathering, while here the assembled people swell into a multitude like shoreline sand.
ALSO GROWS
asif: ingathering; harvest gathered in
אָסִיף
The harvest term shows the root gathering many separate things into one collected whole.
me'asef: one who gathers; a rear guard
מְאַסֵּף
This form names the one who gathers those behind, showing that gathering can collect what would otherwise be left scattered.
THE PATTERN
The image of sand at the sea’s edge makes a multitude feel beyond counting, whether it appears as promise or threat.
That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;And they went out, they and all their hosts with them, much people, even as the sand that is upon the sea shore in multitude, with horses and chariots very many.Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable.THE THREAD
Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.The Psalm uses the same root אָסַף (asaf, gather), but directs the gathering toward covenant. In Samuel, the gathered multitude converges for battle; the shared root makes the gathering’s purpose part of what the word carries.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us