What Does 1 Samuel 22:19 Mean in the King James?
And Nob, the city of the priests, smote he with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and sucklings, and oxen, and asses, and sheep, with the edge of the sword.
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 says “mouth of the sword” twice, framing a list that reaches from adults to nursing infants and livestock: the verse makes the destruction of the whole community visible.
THE MEANING
This verse refuses to let mass violence stay abstract: it names the city’s people down to nursing infants, then names its animals. The list makes visible how far the violence reaches, including those unable to resist.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a massacre reaches only armed opponents: women, nursing infants, and livestock are explicitly included.
THE ROOT
חֶרֶב
ḥerev
GROWS FROM
חרב
Dry up; become desolate.
The consonants חרב also form a verb for drying up or becoming desolate, placing the sword beside the devastation it leaves. The Hebrew phrase literally says “mouth of the sword,” and it appears on both sides of the list, enclosing the people and animals in that image.
ALSO GROWS
charav: To dry up or become desolate.
חָרַב
This verb’s sense of desolation sits alongside the destruction named in the verse.
chorev: Dryness or drought.
חֹרֶב
The dry-state sense extends the word-family’s imagery beyond the weapon to a place stripped of life.
cherev: Sword.
חֶרֶב
The repeated Hebrew phrase is “by the mouth of the sword,” translated here as “with the edge of the sword.”
יוֹנֵק
yoneq
GROWS FROM
ינק
Suck; draw nourishment.
“sucklings” in this verse is yoneq. The word names a child still nursing; the same form also names a tender shoot in Isaiah 53:2. Both images describe life in a dependent, not-yet-grown state, so the list specifies that the violence reaches even there.
ALSO GROWS
yanaq: To suck or nurse.
יָנַק
The verb behind “suckling” points directly to an infant still drawing nourishment.
yoneq: A suckling; also a young shoot or tender plant.
יוֹנֵק
The shared word links a nursing child with vulnerable new growth, illuminating whom the verse includes in the destruction.
THE PATTERN
The text exposes the total reach of violence by naming those beyond the fighting, including infants and animals.
Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword.Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.And Hazael said, Why weepeth my lord? And he answered, Because I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel: their strong holds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with child.THE THREAD
Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.This verse uses the same Hebrew word, יוֹנֵק (yoneq), for “suckling.” In both passages, that nursing child appears among the named victims, making the reach of the violence explicit.
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