What Does 1 Samuel 15:17 Mean in the King James?
And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed thee king over Israel?
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 places Saul’s smallness in his own eyes beside the headship and kingship he receives, showing that self-perception and entrusted place are not the same measure.
THE MEANING
The verse brings the reader into a contrast: a person can see himself as little while holding a real place of responsibility. Saul’s kingship is named as an act the LORD performs through anointing, not a stature Saul creates by believing in himself. The question brings the gift that placed him there back into view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a position proves a person made himself great: Saul is head and king through appointment and anointing.
THE ROOT
רֹאשׁ
rosh
GROWS FROM
ראש
r-ʾ-sh
Head, top, chief, or first.
The Hebrew behind “head” also gives words for the beginning and for what is first. Saul’s place is expressed as the leading position among Israel’s tribes, not merely as a title.
ALSO GROWS
reshit: Beginning; first.
רֵאשִׁית
This branch shows the root’s connection between being at the head and occupying the first place.
rishon: First; former.
רִאשׁוֹן
It carries the same sense of priority that lies beneath the headship named in the verse.
וַיִּמְשָׁחֲךָ
vayyimshaḥakha
GROWS FROM
משח
m-sh-ḥ
To smear with oil; anoint.
The verse describes kingship through the act of applying oil, a visible marking done to Saul. The same root forms “anointed one,” keeping the king’s identity tied to that act of setting apart.
ALSO GROWS
māšîaḥ: Anointed one.
מָשִׁיחַ
This branch carries the act of anointing into the person who bears its mark, as Saul does here.
mišḥāh: Anointing; anointing oil.
מִשְׁחָה
It keeps the concrete oil behind the king’s anointing visible within the word family.
קָטֹן
qāṭōn
GROWS FROM
קטן
q-ṭ-n
To be small; small, young, or regarded as lesser.
The word can describe smallness or someone regarded as lesser, so “little in thine own sight” names a judgment of scale, not simply a feeling. The verse sets that self-estimate alongside a position of great weight.
ALSO GROWS
qəṭannāh: Small; little, feminine form.
קְטַנָּה
This form shows the root describing someone or something regarded as small.
qəṭannīm: Small ones; little ones, masculine plural.
קְטַנִּים
The plural form shows the same root can describe people as “little ones,” not only a person’s self-estimate.
THE PATTERN
Scripture places human estimates of smallness beside the role or standing God gives.
And he said unto him, Oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house. And the LORD said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man.He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill; That he may set him with princes, even with the princes of his people.But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;THE THREAD
The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.Both verses use רֹאשׁ (rosh, “head”): Saul is head over the tribes, and the refused stone becomes the head stone of the corner. The stone’s movement from refusal to its place at the corner shows how an assigned place can exceed how someone is first regarded.
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