What Does 1 Samuel 25:7 Mean in the King James?
And now I have heard that thou hast shearers: now thy shepherds which were with us, we hurt them not, neither was there ought missing unto them, all the while they were in Carmel.
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
Protection here means that no one is shamed and nothing is left unaccounted for.
THE MEANING
The verse gives care a concrete shape: people are not disgraced or harmed, and nothing entrusted to them is missing. Carmel (כַּרְמֶל, Karmel, fruitful ground) places that care amid work and abundance. Safety includes both dignity and the keeping of what belongs to another.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that people are unharmed as long as no one physically injures them, even if their dignity or possessions are damaged.
THE ROOT
הֶכְלַמְנוּם
hekhlimnum
GROWS FROM
כלם
to shame, disgrace, or wound
The verb behind “hurt” can carry the sense of shaming or humiliating. The protection described here reaches beyond physical safety: it preserves people’s dignity too.
ALSO GROWS
hikhlim: to shame or humiliate
הִכְלִים
It is a verb from the same root and clarifies the personal harm the verse says was not done.
kelimmah: shame or disgrace
כְּלִמָּה
This noun shows how the root names an injury to a person’s standing, not only to their body.
נִפְקַד
nifqad
GROWS FROM
פקד
to attend to, appoint, muster, or take account of
The verse says that nothing was absent or missing. The root also belongs to words for attending to and mustering, so the idea of loss sits alongside the idea of keeping things within notice.
ALSO GROWS
paqad: to attend to, visit, muster, or appoint
פָּקַד
This root verb links absence with the act of attending to or counting what is present.
mifqad: a numbering or muster
מִפְקָד
This noun makes the counting sense concrete: what is accounted for is not simply overlooked.
THE PATTERN
A faithful keeper treats every life and possession as worth accounting for, protecting both from harm and loss.
That which was torn of beasts I brought not unto thee; I bare the loss of it; of my hand didst thou require it, whether stolen by day, or stolen by night.What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.THE THREAD
Now David had said, Surely in vain have I kept all that this fellow hath in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that pertained unto him: and he hath requited me evil for good.The Hebrew נִפְקַד (nifqad, be absent or missing), from פָּקַד (paqad, attend to or muster), appears again in “nothing was missed.” The same accounting that marks careful protection now enters David’s reckoning of what he feels is owed, letting one root hold both care and grievance.
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