What Does 1 Samuel 23:8 Mean in the King James?
And Saul called all the people together to war, to go down to Keilah, to besiege David and his men.
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
Saul does not merely summon an army: he makes the whole people hear war, and their hearing becomes the force closing around David.
THE MEANING
This verse names a present danger: power can direct a crowd’s hearing into coordinated violence. Saul sends the people toward Keilah, with David and his men as the ones to be enclosed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a ruler’s command or a crowd’s agreement makes violence righteous; the verse names the action plainly as war and siege.
THE ROOT
וַיַּשְׁמַע
vayyashmaʿ
GROWS FROM
שמע
sh-m-ʿ
Hear, listen, heed; in this causative form, make someone hear.
The Hebrew says Saul “made all the people hear” for war, so “called” carries the act of directing their hearing, not just assembling bodies. The same root gives hearing that calls for a response: here, what the people hear is yoked to a specific movement toward violence.
ALSO GROWS
shamaʿ: Hear, listen, heed
שָׁמַע
This is the root action beneath Saul’s command: the people are made to hear a direction for war.
shemuʿah: Report, news; something heard
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch makes the transmission visible: a message reaches the people through hearing before they move toward Keilah.
THE PATTERN
Power can turn collective agreement into a coordinated instrument of violence against a named person.
And the men of his city, even the elders and the nobles who were the inhabitants in his city, did as Jezebel had sent unto them, and as it was written in the letters which she had sent unto them.But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus.And when it was day, certain of the Jews banded together, and bound themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul.THE THREAD
Specially the day that thou stoodest before the LORD thy God in Horeb, when the LORD said unto me, Gather me the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children.Deuteronomy uses the same causative form of שָׁמַע (shamaʿ, hear and heed): “I will make them hear my words.” Here Saul also makes the people hear, but directs their response toward war; the shared verb reveals how power steers what hearing becomes.
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