What Does 1 Samuel 5:11 Mean in the King James?

So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and said, Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it go again to his own place, that it slay us not, and our people: for there was a deadly destruction throughout all the city; the hand of God was very heavy there.

1 Samuel 5:11 · 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

The same Hebrew root underlies both “they sent” and “send away,” so the city’s answer to God’s crushing weight is an act of release: return the ark to its own place.

THE MEANING

Fear gathers the rulers around one demand: send away what they cannot bear. Death fills the city, and God’s hand is felt as an overwhelming weight there; release means sending the ark back to its own place.

THE ROOT

שַׁלְּחוּ

shallechu

GROWS FROM

שלח

shalach

Send forth, stretch out, release, let go.

The same root in “they sent” and “send away” binds dispatch to release: what is sent out can be returned to its own place. The name Shiloach, or Siloam, carries this same “sent” motion into the pool associated with restored sight in John 9:7.

ALSO GROWS

shaluach: Sent, dispatched.

שָׁלוּחַ

This form makes explicit the movement carried by the verse’s demand: the ark is to be sent back to its place.

Shiloach: Sent; the name Shiloam, the pool.

שִׁלֹחַ

This name carries the same root into the waters associated with sight restored; here, release is likewise a sending back to a place.

כָּבְדָה

kavdah

GROWS FROM

כבד

kabad

Be heavy, weighty; carry weight.

The root of “heavy” also yields kavod, the word rendered “glory” but carrying the sense of weight. God’s hand is presented as weight upon the city, something pressing across the whole place.

ALSO GROWS

kavod: Weight, honor; often rendered glory.

כָּבוֹד

The branch preserves the weight beneath the KJV’s “heavy”: the hand’s force is described with the same seed as divine weight.

kibbed: Honor, treat as weighty.

כִּבֵּד

The same root links physical weight with giving weight or significance, widening the sense of the hand’s heaviness.

THE PATTERN

Release and sending move what is held toward its appointed place or work.

And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.

Exodus 5:1 · KJV“Let my people go” uses the language of release, sending a people toward their work of worship.

Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.

Isaiah 6:8 · KJVThe same Hebrew root frames sending as movement toward the work for which one is appointed.

Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.

John 20:21 · KJVSending carries a person outward into the work entrusted to them.

THE THREAD

And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.

Exodus 5:1 · KJV

“Let my people go” uses the same shalach root as “send away” in this verse: both speak of release as sending forth. Here the ark is sent back to its place; in Exodus, release opens a way for the people to go toward worship.

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