What Does 1 Samuel 25:34 Mean in the King James?
For in very deed, as the LORD God of Israel liveth, which hath kept me back from hurting thee, except thou hadst hasted and come to meet me, surely there had not been left unto Nabal by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall.
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 makes restraint a force that reaches David before his anger can become slaughter.
THE MEANING
Here, the living God keeps David from turning anger into harm, and Abigail’s arrival meets him before the threat reaches Nabal’s household. The threatened slaughter remains real; the difference is that it is stopped before morning.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being wronged makes personal vengeance inevitable: restraint can intervene before the first blow.
THE ROOT
מְנָעַנִי
mena'ani
GROWS FROM
מנע
manaʿ
To withhold, restrain, or hold back.
“kept” in this verse is mena'ani. David says the living God has held him back from causing harm. The word places the threatened violence and its interruption in the same moment: the harm is possible, yet it does not complete itself.
ALSO GROWS
nimnaʿ: Refrained, was held back, or was prevented.
נִמְנַע
This form makes restraint something that can happen to a person before an action is carried out.
moneaʿ: Preventing or holding back.
מוֹנֵעַ
This form names the restraining force itself, echoing the force that keeps David from harming Abigail.
THE PATTERN
An intended harm can be stopped in the interval before it becomes irreversible.
And when the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed the people, It is enough: stay now thine hand. And the angel of the LORD was by the threshingplace of Araunah the Jebusite.A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.THE THREAD
And God said unto him in a dream, Yea, I know that thou didst this in the integrity of thy heart; for I also withheld thee from sinning against me: therefore suffered I thee not to touch her.The same Hebrew root מָנַע (manaʿ), meaning “withhold,” appears when God says he withheld Abimelech from sinning. In both verses, restraint arrives before harm is done; it is the interruption itself, not an afterthought.
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