What Does 1 Samuel 2:32 Mean in the King James?
And thou shalt see an enemy in my habitation, in all the wealth which God shall give Israel: and there shall not be an old man in thine house for ever.
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
Israel’s good does not keep the threat outside the dwelling: the same sentence places communal benefit beside a household losing its elders.
THE MEANING
You see an adversary inside the dwelling while good is coming to Israel. The verse holds communal well-being beside household collapse: the loss reaches into continuity itself, until no elder remains.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The good a community receives guarantees that every household within it is secure.
THE ROOT
צַר
tsar
GROWS FROM
צָרַר
ts-r-r
To bind, press in, or constrict; the word can carry the sense of an adversary who brings distress.
The word translated “enemy” also carries the language of being pressed into a narrow place. Here the threat is located within the dwelling, while Israel receives good; the verse holds constriction and communal benefit together.
ALSO GROWS
tsarah: Distress, trouble
צָרָה
The same root names distress as constriction, showing how an adversary’s force can be felt as narrowed space.
tsarar: To bind, press, or confine
צָרַר
The verb makes the pressure behind the adversary visible: the threat closes around a dwelling.
יֵיטִיב
yetiv
GROWS FROM
יָטַב
y-t-b
To be good, go well, or do good.
The Hebrew behind “wealth” is a verb meaning to do good or bring benefit. That wording sharpens the contrast: good is being done for Israel while the threat and loss remain inside the dwelling.
ALSO GROWS
tov: Good
טוֹב
This root connects Israel’s “wealth” with what is good, rather than only with material riches.
heitiv: Did good, benefited
הֵיטִיב
The verbal family expresses benefit being done for Israel, right beside the household’s distress.
THE PATTERN
The threatened loss of a household becomes visible as its elders and succession disappear.
Behold, the days come, that I will cut off thine arm, and the arm of thy father’s house, that there shall not be an old man in thine house.And it came to pass, when he made mention of the ark of God, that he fell from off the seat backward by the side of the gate, and his neck brake, and he died: for he was an old man, and heavy. And he had judged Israel forty years.So Solomon thrust out Abiathar from being priest unto the LORD; that he might fulfil the word of the LORD, which he spake concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh.THE THREAD
In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears.The “enemy” is tsar, from the same root family that appears as “distress” in this verse. Psalm 18:6 shows that constriction as a cry heard from the temple, opening the root’s range without softening the threat in 1 Samuel.
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