What Does 1 Samuel 2:17 Mean in the King James?
Wherefore the sin of the young men was very great before the LORD: for men abhorred the offering of the LORD.
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 young men’s missing reaches beyond them: it makes people despise the LORD’s gift.
THE MEANING
This verse shows how your conduct can reach past your own actions and shape how others meet what is offered as good. The young men’s missing is so great that people despise the LORD’s offering; the harm spreads from their behavior into communal contempt for the gift.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that wrongdoing stays private or affects only the person who commits it: conduct can turn others toward contempt for the LORD’s offering.
THE ROOT
נִאֲצוּ
ni’atsu
GROWS FROM
נאץ
nʾṣ
To despise, spurn, or treat with contempt; in some contexts, to blaspheme.
The Hebrew behind “abhorred” can also be rendered “blaspheme” elsewhere, linking contempt for the offering with public dishonor toward the LORD. The verse shows how the young men’s conduct spreads its damage through the people’s response to the gift.
ALSO GROWS
na’ats: To despise or spurn.
נָאַץ
This is the root verb behind the people’s contempt for the LORD’s offering.
ni’atsu: They despised or treated with contempt.
נִאֲצוּ
This form names the people’s response, showing that the young men’s wrongdoing reaches beyond their own actions.
חַטַּאת
chatta’t
GROWS FROM
חטא
ḥṭʾ
To miss; to go wrong.
The verse names the young men’s sin with a word from the root of missing. That missing is not contained within them: its visible consequence is that other people turn against the LORD’s offering.
ALSO GROWS
chata: To miss, fail, or sin.
חָטָא
This verbal form gives the root sense carried by the young men’s wrongdoing.
chatta’t: Missing or sin; in ritual contexts, a purification offering.
חַטָּאת
The same Hebrew form can name wrongdoing or a purification offering, though the offering in this verse is a different word, מִנְחָה (minchah), meaning gift or tribute.
THE PATTERN
When those entrusted with sacred things misuse them, their conduct can turn others against what they are meant to honor.
But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the LORD of hosts.For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written.THE THREAD
Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die.The Hebrew root נאץ (na’ats), “to despise,” connects the contempt in this verse with the “blaspheme” in the KJV of 2 Samuel 12:14. Both verses show conduct carrying contempt outward until it touches how others regard the LORD.
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