What Does 1 Samuel 4:1 Mean in the King James?
And the word of Samuel came to all Israel. Now Israel went out against the Philistines to battle, and pitched beside Eben-ezer: and the Philistines pitched in Aphek.
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
A word reaches all Israel beside a place named Stone of Help, so the battle opens with help already embedded in the landscape.
THE MEANING
Samuel’s word reaches the whole people, and they move toward battle; the verse holds shared hearing and collective action together without saying the word directs the move. Beside them stands the Stone of Help, so the question of where help rests is already part of the scene.
THE ROOT
עֵזֶר
ʿēzer
GROWS FROM
עזר
Help, support, assistance.
Eben-ezer is “stone of help”: the name joins אֶבֶן (ʾeven, stone) and עֵזֶר (ʿēzer, help), while the stone-word holds אָב (ʾav, father) with בֵּן (bēn, son). The same root later appears in Samuel’s “hath the LORD helped us,” turning the help in the place-name into a spoken claim about its source.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāzar: To help, support.
עָזַר
This verb appears in Samuel’s later “hath the LORD helped us” (1 Samuel 7:12), where the name’s noun becomes a statement about help received.
ʿezrāh: Help, aid.
עֶזְרָה
This noun shows the same root can name the support itself, not only the act of helping.
דָּבָר
dābār
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak; a spoken word or matter.
Dābār can name both a word and a matter or thing. Here, the word reaches all Israel just before the people move, so the utterance and the public event sit side by side without the verse making Samuel’s word a battle command.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: He spoke.
דִּבֵּר
The speech verb shows that the word arriving among the people is an act of utterance.
devarim: Words, matters, things.
דְּבָרִים
This plural preserves the overlap between speech and matters, making the word’s arrival a shared public concern.
THE PATTERN
Scripture lets a name carry a truth that an event or action makes visible.
And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen.Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Eben-ezer, saying, Hitherto hath the LORD helped us.And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.THE THREAD
Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Eben-ezer, saying, Hitherto hath the LORD helped us.Eben-ezer means “stone of help,” and “helped” in this verse grows from the same root, עזר (ʿ-z-r, help). The later sentence makes the name’s hidden sense explicit by naming the LORD as the source of help.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us