What Does 1 Samuel 14:30 Mean in the King James?
How much more, if haply the people had eaten freely to day of the spoil of their enemies which they found? for had there not been now a much greater slaughter among the Philistines?
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 measures hunger in blood: food left uneaten may mean a smaller blow against the enemy.
THE MEANING
When your body is denied nourishment while demanding work continues, your strength for the work diminishes; food within reach can change what you are able to carry through. The verse measures that cost in the possibility of a greater slaughter among the Philistines.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Withholding food does not automatically make a person or group stronger; deprivation can diminish the force available for the work.
THE ROOT
אָכֹל אָכַל
akhol akhal
GROWS FROM
אכל
Eat, consume.
“eaten” in this verse is akhol akhal. The doubled form emphasizes the eating: the imagined outcome turns on whether the people actually take food already within reach. The word family keeps nourishment concrete, linking the act of eating with the food itself.
ALSO GROWS
okhel: Food, nourishment.
אֹכֶל
Food is the substance the people could have taken from the spoil.
ma'akhal: Food, something eaten.
מַאֲכָל
This branch makes the verse’s hinge tangible: nourishment is available, but the people have not eaten.
מַכָּה
makkah
GROWS FROM
נכה
Strike, smite.
Makkah names a blow or defeat, carrying the force of an actual strike into the word for slaughter. The verse links the people’s nourishment to the possibility of a more forceful blow against the Philistines.
ALSO GROWS
nakah: To strike, smite.
נָכָה
The verb gives the force behind the blow named in the verse.
makkah: A blow, wound, or defeat.
מַכָּה
This is the word rendered “slaughter,” keeping the military consequence concrete.
THE PATTERN
Nourishment received restores capacity for the work that lies ahead.
And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.And they did all eat, and were filled.THE THREAD
And the men of Israel were distressed that day: for Saul had adjured the people, saying, Cursed be the man that eateth any food until evening, that I may be avenged on mine enemies. So none of the people tasted any food.The Hebrew root אכל (akhal, eat) runs through the oath’s ban on food and the counterfactual in verse 30. Verse 24 names the deprivation; verse 30 lets its cost appear as a potentially greater blow against the Philistines.
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