What Does 1 Samuel 18:29 Mean in the King James?

And Saul was yet the more afraid of David; and Saul became David’s enemy continually.

1 Samuel 18:29 · KJV

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

Fear can turn the one named beloved into a lasting enemy.

THE MEANING

Fear can become more than a feeling: it can settle into the way one person holds another, until hostility persists day after day. David’s name, linked to ⁨דּוֹד⁩ (dod, beloved), sharpens the rupture: the one named beloved is held as an enemy.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that fear is purely private and therefore harmless: here fear takes relational form as continuing enmity.

THE ROOT

אֹיֵב

oyeb

GROWS FROM

א־י־ב

ʾ-y-b

Hostility; to act as an enemy.

This root names both a hostile person and enmity itself: Saul’s fear takes shape as an ongoing relation of opposition. David’s name (⁨דָּוִד⁩, David; linked with ⁨דּוֹד⁩, dod, beloved) sharpens the fracture: the one named beloved is held as an enemy.

ALSO GROWS

oyeb: An enemy; one who acts with hostility.

אֹיֵב

This is the word used for Saul’s continuing stance toward David.

eyvah: Enmity; hostility between parties.

אֵיבָה

The same root names the condition of opposition, showing how fear’s stance becomes a lasting relationship.

THE PATTERN

When another person is read as a threat, fear or comparison can harden into an ongoing adversarial stance.

And Saul eyed David from that day and forward.

1 Samuel 18:9 · KJVSaul’s watchful fixation becomes a lasting orientation toward David.

The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the LORD shall be safe.

Proverbs 29:25 · KJVFear of another is pictured as a trap, showing how a threat-centered relation constricts the one who fears.

Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.

1 John 3:12 · KJVComparison with a brother becomes hostility expressed in violence.

THE THREAD

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Genesis 3:15 · KJV

The word for “enmity” here, ⁨אֵיבָה⁩ (eyvah, enmity), shares its root with ⁨אֹיֵב⁩ (oyeb, enemy) in this verse. The connection shows how opposition can name not just a feeling, but a relationship held in hostility.

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