What Does 1 Samuel 20:34 Mean in the King James?
So Jonathan arose from the table in fierce anger, and did eat no meat the second day of the month: for he was grieved for David, because his father had done him shame.
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
At this table, humiliation crosses the boundary between the person shamed and the person who loves him: Jonathan’s anger becomes grief for David.
THE MEANING
When someone close to you is humiliated, the injury can arrive in you as grief and anger; it does not stay contained in the person targeted. David’s name (דָּוִד, Dāwīd) is linked to דּוֹד (dōd, beloved), so the grief rests on the beloved being shamed. Jonathan’s untouched meal makes that shared pain visible, and the verse names his father’s act as its cause.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that another person’s humiliation should leave those who love them untouched: Jonathan is grieved because David is shamed.
THE ROOT
נֶעְצַב
ne'etsav
GROWS FROM
עצב
To hurt, grieve, or feel pain.
The root holds grief within a family of words for hurt and sorrow, not merely a passing mood. Genesis 6:6 uses another form of this same root for being grieved at the heart, showing how deeply another’s actions can register.
ALSO GROWS
ʿiṣṣāḇôn: Pain, sorrow, or toil.
עִצָּבוֹן
This noun branch makes the root’s link between grief and felt pain explicit.
vayyitʿaṣṣēv: And he was grieved.
וַיִּתְעַצֵּב
This form appears in Genesis 6:6, where grief is felt at the heart; it shares the root in Jonathan’s grief.
הִכְלִמוֹ
hikhlimo
GROWS FROM
כלם
To shame or humiliate.
“had done him shame” in this verse is hikhlimo. The verb names what David suffers as humiliation, not simply disagreement or hurt feelings. Jonathan’s grief is tied directly to that public injury: his father shames David, and Jonathan feels the pain of it.
ALSO GROWS
kelimmāh: Shame or disgrace.
כְּלִמָּה
This noun gives a name to the humiliation carried by the verb in the verse.
nikhlām: Humiliated or put to shame.
נִכְלָם
This form describes the person who receives the disgrace, making visible David’s position in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Love makes another person’s disgrace register as shared pain.
For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.THE THREAD
And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.Jonathan’s נֶעְצַב (ne’etsav, grieved) and Genesis’s וַיִּתְעַצֵּב (vayyitʿaṣṣēv, was grieved) share the root עצב, the language of hurt and sorrow. The same root lets the verse’s grief register as something that reaches the heart.
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