What Does 1 Samuel 28:22 Mean in the King James?
Now therefore, I pray thee, hearken thou also unto the voice of thine handmaid, and let me set a morsel of bread before thee; and eat, that thou mayest have strength, when thou goest on thy way.
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 next stretch of the way is met with a morsel placed within reach, and strength begins in receiving it.
THE MEANING
The verse places a worn person between a voice and a meal: help is immediate, tangible, and small enough to receive. The next way opens as strength returns through food taken into the body.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that the next step depends on resolve alone: the body receives food before it can carry the journey.
THE ROOT
דֶּרֶךְ
derek
GROWS FROM
דרך
d-r-k
To tread or step along.
The word for a way is tied to the ground someone actually treads. Here, strength serves movement through a real path, and a meal helps make the next steps possible.
ALSO GROWS
darak: To tread, step, or march.
דָּרַךְ
This verb shares the root with “way,” joining the road to the act of moving along it.
midrakh: A place to set the foot; footing.
מִדְרָךְ
This branch brings the way down to the next place the body can stand or step.
שְׁמַע
shemaʿ
GROWS FROM
שמע
sh-m-ʿ
To hear or listen, with hearing that can open into response.
“hearken” in this verse is shemaʿ. The request begins by asking Saul to hear the handmaid’s voice, and that voice immediately offers food. In the verse, listening leads toward a concrete response to the body’s need.
ALSO GROWS
shamaʿ: To hear or listen.
שָׁמַע
This is the verb behind “hearken,” the act through which the offer first reaches him.
shemuʿah: A report or message heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This noun shows how the same root can carry what arrives through hearing, linking the voice in the verse to what it communicates.
THE PATTERN
Strength for the way ahead is restored through provision placed before the person who must continue.
And the angel of the LORD came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee.And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart.Then Jesus called his disciples unto him, and said, I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with me now three days, and have nothing to eat: and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way.THE THREAD
And the angel of the LORD came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee.Both verses place food before the journey continues: here the meal gives strength for the way; there food answers a journey too great to carry unfed. Together they show sustenance as the body’s provision for movement.
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