What Does 1 Samuel 20:18 Mean in the King James?
Then Jonathan said to David, To morrow is the new moon: and thou shalt be missed, because thy seat will be empty.
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 Hebrew repeats one root for both David being missed and his seat being empty: the person and the vacant place are one absence.
THE MEANING
Your place among others remains visible even when you are not there. David’s absence takes shape in the seat left vacant, making being missed concrete in a shared life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that absence leaves no trace: an empty place can show that someone is expected.
THE ROOT
נִפְקַדְתָּ
nifqadta
GROWS FROM
פקד
To attend to, take account of, muster; in these forms, to be noticed as missing.
“missed / empty” in this verse is nifqadta. The Hebrew repeats פקד in both clauses: David is noticed as missing because the place that should hold him is missing too. The root also means to attend to or take account of, so the vacant seat makes an expected presence count.
ALSO GROWS
paqad: Attend to, visit, take notice of.
פָּקַד
The same root can describe noticing someone’s absence and attending to someone’s condition.
pequddah: Charge, oversight, appointed responsibility.
פְּקֻדָּה
The root also carries the sense of being accounted for or held within someone’s care.
mifqad: Muster, count, or numbered assembly.
מִפְקָד
A muster makes each person’s presence count; here, the vacant place makes David’s absence count.
THE PATTERN
Belonging becomes visible when the absence of someone who is counted leaves a place in the whole.
And Jacob their father said unto them, Me have ye bereaved of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin away: all these things are against me.What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.THE THREAD
Go, and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt:Exodus uses the same root פקד (paqad: attend to, take account of) in “I have surely visited you.” In Samuel, the root makes David’s absence register; in Exodus, it makes the people’s condition register as seen.
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