What Does 1 Samuel 16:1 Mean in the King James?
And the LORD said unto Samuel, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? fill thine horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to Jesse the Beth-lehemite: for I have provided me a king among his sons.
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
“I have provided” literally says “I have seen for myself”: what you cannot yet see is already seen by the LORD.
THE MEANING
Grief can keep your attention fixed on a future that has been rejected, but that loss is not the only future. What comes next is already seen, even while it remains out of sight. The movement begins with a sending toward what has already been seen.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that when one future is rejected, every future is closed.
THE ROOT
רָאִיתִי
ra'iti
GROWS FROM
ראה
ra'ah
to see, look, perceive
The Hebrew says the LORD has seen a king for himself, so “provided” holds both perception and choosing: the provision is already present in divine sight. In the next verse, “appearance” comes from this same root, exposing the gap between seeing a face and recognizing a heart.
ALSO GROWS
ro'eh: seer; one who sees
רֹאֶה
The root joins seeing to recognizing: the LORD sees the king where Samuel has not yet recognized him.
mar'eh: appearance, sight
מַרְאֶה
The next verse uses this branch for outward appearance, setting visible stature against the LORD’s way of seeing.
אֶשְׁלָחֲךָ
eshallachakha
GROWS FROM
שלח
shalach
to send, send forth; in sending away, to release or let go
“send” in this verse is eshallachakha. The sending moves Samuel out of the orbit of mourning. The root’s sense of sending away and release makes that movement part of the verse: the rejected reign remains real, but it does not close the way forward.
ALSO GROWS
shilluach: sending away, dismissal
שִׁלּוּחַ
This branch makes release part of the same family as sending: Samuel is sent onward from what has ended.
Shiloach: the sent waters, the Siloam stream
שִׁלֹחַ
The name preserves the image of sending as a channel through which something moves onward.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s seeing reaches a person and a future beyond what ordinary sight can recognize.
And she called the name of the LORD that spake unto her, Thou God seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me?Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.THE THREAD
But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.“I have seen” in verse 1 and “seeth” and “looketh” in verse 7 all grow from ראה (ra’ah), meaning to see or perceive. Verse 7 opens the contrast: the LORD’s seeing reaches the heart, where human sight settles on appearance.
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