What Does 1 Samuel 30:10 Mean in the King James?
But David pursued, he and four hundred men: for two hundred abode behind, which were so faint that they could not go over the brook Besor.
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 for “faint,” פִּגְרוּ (pigru, they were exhausted), belongs to the root פגר (p-g-r), which also names a carcass, placing their halt at the body’s point of collapse, not mere reluctance.
THE MEANING
This verse holds a pursuit and a bodily limit in the same frame: four hundred continue, while two hundred cannot carry themselves across the brook. Their stopping is named as exhaustion, so the scene does not equate movement with willingness or stillness with refusal.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the assumption that anyone who stops moving has chosen not to continue: these two hundred are too depleted to cross.
THE ROOT
פִּגְרוּ
pigru
GROWS FROM
פגר
To become exhausted or lie inert; the related noun means carcass.
The verb translated “faint” shares its root with פֶּגֶר (peger, carcass), giving the exhaustion a starkly bodily edge. The word points to strength spent to the point of collapse, not simply a decision to stop.
ALSO GROWS
pāgar: To become exhausted or faint
פָּגַר
This is the verb in the verse: the two hundred are spent to the point that they cannot cross.
peger: Carcass; dead body
פֶּגֶר
The related noun reveals how closely the root associates exhaustion with a body lying inert.
דָּוִד
Dāwīd
GROWS FROM
דוד
Beloved; love or affection.
David’s name carries the nature of the beloved, from דּוֹד (dōd, beloved). Here, the beloved leader continues with four hundred while two hundred reach their physical limit; the verse holds both realities together.
ALSO GROWS
dōd: Beloved; kinsman
דּוֹד
This root connects David’s name with belovedness, a quality carried by the person leading the pursuit.
dōdîm: Loves or expressions of love
דֹּדִים
The related form appears in the language of love, extending the name’s root beyond a label into a nature.
THE PATTERN
A shared pursuit does not erase the body’s unequal capacity or its stopping point.
Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone.For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.THE THREAD
This day will the LORD deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.David uses the related noun פֶּגֶר (peger, carcass) for the fallen Philistine bodies, sharing the root פגר with “faint” in 1 Samuel 30:10. The same word family reaches from exhaustion to the body lying inert, giving the later halt at the brook a stark physical meaning.
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