What Does 1 Samuel 6:11 Mean in the King James?
And they laid the ark of the LORD upon the cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold and the images of their emerods.
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 ark travels on the same cart as golden likenesses of bodily affliction, keeping the sacred and the grotesque in one frame.
THE MEANING
Here, what is set apart travels beside visible forms of bodily pain. The ark, golden mice, and gold likenesses of tumors occupy one load, so reverence and the grotesque remain together in the scene.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The holy can appear only after bodily suffering has been hidden away.
THE ROOT
צַלְמֵי
tsalmei
GROWS FROM
צלם
ts-l-m
Image, form, likeness.
צַלְמֵי (tsalmei) means images or likenesses, the plural form of צֶלֶם (tselem). The same word names humanity made in God’s image in Genesis; here, the tumors are not the affliction itself but its crafted likeness, making bodily pain visible and portable.
ALSO GROWS
tselem: Image; likeness.
צֶלֶם
Genesis uses this singular form for humanity made in God’s image, giving the gold figures here a striking contrast with a living image-bearer.
tselamim: Images; likenesses.
צְלָמִים
This plural form names representations rather than the things represented; here it makes bodily affliction something that can be seen and carried.
עֲגָלָה
agalah
GROWS FROM
עגל
ʿ-g-l
Roundness; rolling.
The Hebrew word for cart belongs to a root associated with roundness and rolling. That movement is inside the scene: the ark and the likenesses of affliction are not merely displayed together; they travel onward as one load.
ALSO GROWS
agol: Round; circular.
עָגֹל
This form carries the root’s sense of roundness, echoing the rolling shape of a cart.
iggul: Circle; circular form.
עִגּוּל
This related form preserves the circular sense behind the cart’s word and underscores that the objects are being carried in motion.
THE PATTERN
Sacred things are shown through the material forms that carry them.
But unto the sons of Kohath he gave none: because the service of the sanctuary belonging unto them was that they should bear upon their shoulders.But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.THE THREAD
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.The Hebrew word for “image” here is the same צֶלֶם (tselem) used for the golden figures in 1 Samuel. Genesis names humanity as made in God’s image; this verse turns tumors into images, making the difference between a living image-bearer and a representation visible.
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