What Does 1 Samuel 3:13 Mean in the King James?
For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not.
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 judgment reaches beyond the sons’ conduct to the knowing failure to restrain it.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks where harm is known and the power to restrain it is present. It names the sons’ degrading conduct and their father’s failure to check it, placing the whole house under judgment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that responsibility ends where one’s own hands stop: knowing about harm and failing to restrain it also carries weight.
THE ROOT
כהה
kahah
GROWS FROM
כהה
kahah
To grow dim or weak; in this usage, to restrain or rebuke.
The verb translated “restrained” also carries the sense of dimming or weakening. The verse frames Eli’s failure as leaving his sons’ conduct unchecked, allowing its force to continue.
ALSO GROWS
kahah: To grow dim or weak.
כָּהָה
This verb’s sense of diminished force adds depth to the idea of restraining what is happening.
kehéh: Dim or faint.
כֵּהֶה
The related adjective echoes the root’s language of dimness, linking restraint with checking the force of an action.
מקללים
meqallelim
GROWS FROM
קלל
qalal
To be light or slight; in another form, to curse or treat with contempt.
The word rendered “vile” comes from a root that can mean making light of something and also cursing. The sons’ conduct is not merely described as bad; the root gives it the force of contempt and self-cursing.
ALSO GROWS
qal: Light or slight.
קַל
This branch shows the root’s concrete sense of treating something as light or insignificant.
qelalah: A curse.
קְלָלָה
This branch reveals the curse-bearing shade beneath the sons’ contemptible conduct.
ידע
yada
GROWS FROM
ידע
yada
To know or perceive through encounter.
“knoweth” in this verse is yada. ידע is knowing formed through encounter, not merely having information. The verse makes Eli’s knowledge of his sons’ conduct part of the charge: the harm is known, yet it is not restrained.
ALSO GROWS
daʿat: Knowledge or understanding.
דַּעַת
This noun carries the same root into the state of knowing that the verse attributes to Eli.
maddaʿ: Knowledge or understanding.
מַדָּע
This related noun shows how the root extends from knowing by encounter to knowledge held in the mind.
THE PATTERN
Knowledge of harm carries responsibility when a person can warn against it or restrain it.
When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.THE THREAD
For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.The verb rendered “know” comes from the same ידע root as the knowledge Eli possesses. Here that knowing is joined to the shaping of a household, showing its weight when the household’s conduct is at stake.
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