What Does 1 Samuel 14:20 Mean in the King James?
And Saul and all the people that were with him assembled themselves, and they came to the battle: and, behold, every man’s sword was against his fellow, and there was a very great discomfiture.
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 Hebrew word behind “discomfiture” carries the sense of tumult, and here the battle’s confusion turns every man’s sword against his own companion.
THE MEANING
This verse holds open a brutal possibility: danger can turn inward, so that a person’s weapon is raised against a companion. The violence remains plain, and the disorder is overwhelming.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that everyone fighting on the same side is safe from one another breaks here: each man’s sword is against his fellow.
THE ROOT
חֶרֶב
ḥerev
GROWS FROM
חרב
To dry up, lay waste, or become desolate.
The word for “sword” belongs to a family of words for desolation and ruin. When the sword turns against a companion, the instrument of devastation is turned inward, against the fighters’ own side.
ALSO GROWS
charav: To dry up, become waste, or be laid waste.
חָרַב
This verb reveals the desolating force carried in the word family that includes “sword.”
chorbah: Ruin or desolation.
חָרְבָּה
This branch gives the sword’s root family an image of the devastation that follows when its force is turned inward.
THE PATTERN
When conflict turns a group against itself, the force aimed outward becomes a force of internal destruction.
And the three hundred blew the trumpets, and the LORD set every man’s sword against his fellow, even throughout all the host: and the host fled to Beth-shittah in Zererath, and to the border of Abel-meholah, unto Tabbath.For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of mount Seir, utterly to slay and destroy them: and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, every one helped to destroy another.And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.THE THREAD
And the three hundred blew the trumpets, and the LORD set every man’s sword against his fellow, even throughout all the host: and the host fled to Beth-shittah in Zererath, and to the border of Abel-meholah, unto Tabbath.Both verses use חֶרֶב (ḥerev, sword) and describe each man’s sword against his fellow. The repeated Hebrew word and image reveal the same inward turn: the weapon does not distinguish an enemy from a companion.
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