What Does 1 Samuel 18:13 Mean in the King James?
Therefore Saul removed him from him, and made him his captain over a thousand; and he went out and came in before the people.
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
Saul’s distance places David in public view, where movement among the people becomes the mark of his new role.
THE MEANING
You can be moved away from someone’s side and still be placed in visible responsibility. The verse locates that responsibility in movement among the people: going out and coming in before them. Losing nearness to one authority does not automatically mean losing your public place.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that losing a ruler’s nearness means losing all standing: David is removed from Saul’s side and placed over a thousand, visible before the people.
THE ROOT
וַיֵּצֵא
wayyetse
GROWS FROM
י־צ־א
y-ts-ʾ
To go out, emerge, or come forth.
וַיֵּצֵא (wayyetse, “he went out”) carries literal outward movement; paired with וַיָּבֹא (wayyavo, “and he came in”), it makes leadership a repeated passage into and through the people’s presence. The root ties David’s role to his visible emergence among them, not merely to Saul’s appointment.
ALSO GROWS
yetsi'ah: An act of going out or departing.
יְצִיאָה
It keeps the verse’s focus on David’s movement into public life.
motsa: A way out, an emergence, or an origin.
מוֹצָא
This branch shows how the root can describe both leaving a place and coming forth into view.
THE PATTERN
A leader’s presence is made visible through movement among the people.
Which may go out before them, and which may go in before them, and which may lead them out, and which may bring them in; that the congregation of the LORD be not as sheep which have no shepherd.And he said unto them, I am an hundred and twenty years old this day; I can no more go out and come in: also the LORD hath said unto me, Thou shalt not go over this Jordan.Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,THE THREAD
Which may go out before them, and which may go in before them, and which may lead them out, and which may bring them in; that the congregation of the LORD be not as sheep which have no shepherd.The paired movements “go out” and “go in” appear here as the rhythm of leading the congregation. That connection opens Saul’s appointment further: David’s role takes shape in visible movement among the people.
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