What Does 1 Samuel 14:38 Mean in the King James?
And Saul said, Draw ye near hither, all the chief of the people: and know and see wherein this sin hath been this day.
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 people’s chiefs are called their “corners,” and Saul gathers those structural points to find where the day’s missing occurred.
THE MEANING
You are inside an inquiry that calls the community’s corner-points near and asks them to know and see where the day’s missing has occurred. The word rendered “sin” also carries the image of a mark missed, making the failure something to locate and perceive.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a wrong within a community is too vague to locate dissolves here: Saul asks where the missing has taken place today.
THE ROOT
הַחַטָּאת
ha-ḥaṭṭā’t
GROWS FROM
חטא
ḥ-ṭ-ʾ
To miss or err.
The word translated “sin” also lets you hear “the missing”, something that can be located “wherein” it has been, today. The root gives the verse a concrete image of a mark missed, alongside the familiar sense of sin.
ALSO GROWS
chata: To miss or err.
חָטָא
The verb makes the root’s image of missing an action, illuminating Saul’s question about where it has occurred.
chatta’t: Missing or sin; in ritual contexts, an offering associated with the missing.
חַטָּאת
The same root connects the failure named here with the offering vocabulary used for what is missing.
פִּנּוֹת
pinnoth
GROWS FROM
פנה
p-n-h
To turn or face; the word family also carries the image of a corner.
The Hebrew word rendered “chiefs” is pinnoth, literally “corners.” It gives the leaders a structural image: the points where the people’s whole takes shape and turns toward what needs to be seen.
ALSO GROWS
panim: Face or presence.
פָּנִים
The face belongs to the same word family’s image of turning toward something.
pinnah: Corner; a structural or prominent point.
פִּנָּה
This is the singular form behind the verse’s picture of the people’s “corners” as their chiefs.
דְעוּ
de’u
GROWS FROM
ידע
y-d-ʿ
To know or recognize.
Saul pairs “know” with “see.” Yada carries knowing as recognition, so the inquiry calls for the people to perceive and recognize where the missing is situated.
ALSO GROWS
da’at: Knowledge or understanding.
דַּעַת
This noun carries the same root from knowing into what is recognized or understood.
moda: An acquaintance or kinsman; someone known.
מוֹדָע
This branch shows the root’s reach into personal recognition, not information alone.
THE PATTERN
A hidden miss becomes visible when the whole turns toward locating it.
Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.THE THREAD
Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.Psalm 119:11 uses the same חטא root in “sin”: Saul asks where the missing has occurred today, while the psalm names a word held in the heart as a way of not missing against God. The shared root gives both verses the concrete image of a mark missed or not missed.
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