What Does 1 Samuel 6:21 Mean in the King James?
And they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kirjath-jearim, saying, The Philistines have brought again the ark of the LORD; come ye down, and fetch it up to you.
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 word translated “sent” carries release within it: what is dispatched can set a return in motion.
THE MEANING
When what has returned still needs to be received, the message reaches you before the thing itself does. Here, people come down to meet what is being brought up to them; arrival becomes return through reception.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse unsettles the belief that something is fully restored the moment it comes back: return also involves being received.
THE ROOT
וַיִּשְׁלְחוּ
wayyishleḥu
GROWS FROM
שלח
š-l-ḥ
To send, send forth, release, or let go.
The messengers are sent with a word that moves the return forward. Hebrew also uses this root for release, joining dispatch and letting go in one motion.
ALSO GROWS
Shiloach: Sent forth; the name of a watercourse.
שִׁלֹחַ
The name carries the sense of something sent onward, echoing the message that moves the ark toward those who will receive it.
shulchan: Table; provision extended.
שֻׁלְחָן
The table’s extended provision echoes how sending opens a path for what is returning to be received.
shillaḥ: Send away, release, let go.
שִׁלַּח
This verbal form makes explicit the release already carried within the verse’s “sent.”
THE PATTERN
A word sent outward can initiate movement from confinement toward return and renewed life.
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.He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.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.The Hebrew root שלח (shalach), meaning “send” or “release,” appears in both verses. The same root that sends messengers toward the ark’s return also voices the release that opens a way out.
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