What Does 1 Samuel 21:13 Mean in the King James?
And he changed his behaviour before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard.
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
What KJV calls David’s behaviour is his taste or sense, while his scrabbling is marking, the disguise shifts what others perceive and leaves a trace on the gate.
THE MEANING
The verse holds survival in the body: you change how you appear before hostile eyes, feign madness in their hands, scratch on the gate doors, and let spit run down your beard. The act is deliberate, but your body remains exposed to the people around you. Here escape carries no polished dignity; it is performed through disorder and humiliation.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that survival must preserve composure dissolves here: this escape is enacted through deliberate disorder and public humiliation.
THE ROOT
טַעְמוֹ
ṭaʿmô
GROWS FROM
טעם
Taste; by extension, sense or discernment.
The word KJV renders behaviour is literally his taste or sense. The same root can name judgment, so the verse frames his disguise as a change in the manner and impression he presents before them.
ALSO GROWS
ṭāʿam: To taste or sample.
טָעַם
This branch preserves the sensory meaning still present beneath the English word behaviour.
ṭaʿam: Sense, judgment, or discernment.
טַעַם
The same root can describe discernment, linking David’s changed manner with a change in how he is perceived.
וַיְתָו
vayetav
GROWS FROM
תוה
To mark, draw, or inscribe.
The verb rendered scrabbled comes from a root meaning to mark or draw, giving the gesture a concrete trace across the doors. Elsewhere, this root names a mark set on a forehead, so the English hides a shared image of inscription.
ALSO GROWS
tav: A mark or sign.
תָּו
The root makes the marks on the gate part of the verse’s action, not merely background to the performance.
vehitvita: To mark or set a mark, as in Ezekiel 9:4.
וְהִתְוִיתָ
The same root appears when a mark is set on foreheads, connecting David’s gesture on the doors with another act of marking.
THE PATTERN
A body can stage one identity while its voice, touch, or outward form tells a different story.
And Jacob went near unto Isaac his father; and he felt him, and said, The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau.And it was so, when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet, as she came in at the door, that he said, Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou thyself to be another? for I am sent to thee with heavy tidings.And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.THE THREAD
And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.The verb behind David’s scrabbling is תוה, the same root in Ezekiel’s set a mark. One marking runs across gate doors in a desperate disguise; the other is placed on foreheads and distinguishes those who grieve, linking a staged outer sign with a sign borne by the grieving.
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