What Does 1 Samuel 17:22 Mean in the King James?
And David left his carriage in the hand of the keeper of the carriage, and ran into the army, and came and saluted his brethren.
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
David’s greeting carries a question about his brothers’ wholeness right into the battle line.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to you in a charged moment: urgency does not erase attention to another person’s wholeness. What you carry can be entrusted while you move toward those you love and ask how they are.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that conflict leaves no room to care about another person’s condition. David runs into the battle line and still asks after his brothers’ wholeness.
THE ROOT
לְשָׁלוֹם
le-shalom
GROWS FROM
שׁ־ל־ם
sh-l-m
To be complete or whole; to make whole.
“Saluted” can sound like a polite formula, but David asks his brothers about their shalom: their wholeness and welfare. The same root reaches from being whole to making good what is due, so this greeting asks after their condition, not merely their presence.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, welfare, peace.
שָׁלוֹם
This is what David asks about: whether his brothers are well and whole.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
This branch makes the completeness inside shalom visible.
shillem: To repay, recompense, or make good.
שִׁלֵּם
Making good what is owed carries the root’s sense of restoring what is incomplete.
דָּוִד
Dawid
GROWS FROM
דּ־וֹ־ד
d-w-d
Beloved; one dearly loved.
David’s name carries the nature of the beloved. Here, that name stands beside a concrete gesture: he runs toward his brothers and asks after their wholeness.
ALSO GROWS
dod: Beloved; also uncle or close kinsman.
דּוֹד
The name shares its consonants with a word for the beloved, giving the name a relational nature.
dodim: Love or expressions of affection.
דּוֹדִים
The same consonants appear in a word for love, echoing the care in David’s question about his brothers.
הַמַּעֲרָכָה
ha-maʿarakhah
GROWS FROM
ע־ר־ךְ
ʿ-r-kh
To arrange or set in order.
The word translated “army” here is maʿarakhah, an arranged battle line. The verse places David’s run into that formation beside his question about his brothers: the setting is ordered for battle, while his words attend to people.
ALSO GROWS
ʿarakh: To arrange, set out, or put in order.
עָרַךְ
This is the action beneath the word for the battle line David enters.
maʿarakhah: An array, formation, or battle line.
מַעֲרָכָה
It names the organized ranks into which David runs.
THE PATTERN
Care in a strained moment takes the form of asking after and pursuing another’s wholeness.
And he asked them of their welfare, and said, Is your father well, the old man of whom ye spake? Is he yet alive?Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.THE THREAD
And he asked them of their welfare, and said, Is your father well, the old man of whom ye spake? Is he yet alive?The Hebrew uses the same pairing: he asks his brothers about their shalom. That makes David’s “salute” a question about his brothers’ welfare and wholeness.
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