What Does 1 Samuel 28:13 Mean in the King James?

And the king said unto her, Be not afraid: for what sawest thou? And the woman said unto Saul, I saw gods ascending out of the earth.

1 Samuel 28:13 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

Here the earth opens upward: what is named as divine rises from below rather than descending from heaven.

THE MEANING

The verse holds fear and vision together: Saul asks what the woman sees, and she describes divine beings rising from the earth. The next verse identifies the figure as Samuel, leaving the sight poised between a plural divine designation and one named human presence. What lies beneath becomes visible through an upward movement.

THE ROOT

עֹלִים

ʿolim

GROWS FROM

עלה

ʿalah

rise, ascend, go up

“ascending” in this verse is ʿolim. The verb shares its root with the ascent offering, whose smoke rises. The vision moves upward from the earth, and this same root later describes being brought up from the grave; the word carries movement from below into view.

ALSO GROWS

ʿolah: Ascent offering, commonly rendered burnt offering.

עֹלָה

Its name carries the same upward movement as the figure rising from the earth.

ʿaliyah: Ascent or going up.

עֲלִיָּה

It makes the shared root’s movement upward explicit.

THE PATTERN

Scripture pictures ascent as movement across a boundary between hidden depths and visible encounter.

And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.

Genesis 28:12 · KJVThe dream makes the movement between earth and heaven visible through ascending and descending figures.

Thou, which hast shewed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth.

Psalm 71:20 · KJVBeing brought up from the earth’s depths turns hiddenness into renewed life.

And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.

John 3:13 · KJVThe verse holds descent and ascent together as movement between heaven and earth.

THE THREAD

The LORD killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up.

1 Samuel 2:6 · KJV

The same Hebrew root for ascending appears in the promise that the LORD brings a person up from the grave. The woman’s vision rises from the earth; Hannah’s song gives that upward movement a place in the larger scriptural image of rising from the domain below.

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