What Does 1 Samuel 6:5 Mean in the King James?

Wherefore ye shall make images of your emerods, and images of your mice that mar the land; and ye shall give glory unto the God of Israel: peradventure he will lighten his hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land.

1 Samuel 6:5 · 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

Here, “give glory” names God as weighty, while the prayer asks that the weight of his hand grow light.

THE MEANING

The afflictions and the mice are given visible form before the God of Israel. You give God the weight of recognition and ask that his hand grow light upon you, your gods, and your land. The verse holds what is striking you and the possibility of its pressure lifting together.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that a heavy hand cannot become light: the verse holds pressure and its easing within the same sentence.

THE ROOT

כָּבוֹד

kavod

GROWS FROM

כבד

k-b-d

Be heavy, weighty, or significant.

“Glory” can carry more than praise: ⁨כָּבוֹד⁩ holds the sense of weight and significance. Here, that weight-language stands beside the plea for God’s hand to be lightened, holding honor and pressure in one image.

ALSO GROWS

kaved: Heavy or weighty.

כָּבֵד

This branch makes the physical sense inside “glory” visible: what has weight is substantial and consequential.

kibbed: To honor or treat as weighty.

כִּבֵּד

Giving glory is recognition that assigns weight and significance.

יָקֵל

yaqel

GROWS FROM

קלל

q-l-l

Be light or slight; make light.

“lighten” in this verse is yaqel. The verb carries the sense of making light or reducing weight. Beside ⁨כָּבוֹד⁩ (kavod), it reveals a striking contrast: God is named as weighty, while the pressure of his hand is asked to become lighter.

ALSO GROWS

qal: Light or slight.

קַל

This adjective shows the basic sense behind the requested easing of the hand.

heqel: Made light or less burdensome.

הֵקֵל

This related verb form makes “lighten” concrete as a reduction of weight.

THE PATTERN

Scripture uses weight to speak both of divine significance and of pressure, while relief appears as that weight becoming light.

But the hand of the LORD was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods, even Ashdod and the coasts thereof.

1 Samuel 5:6 · KJVThe heavy hand names pressure with the same weight-language that the next chapter places beside “glory” and a plea for lightness.

And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, that he shall follow after them; and I will be honoured upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host; that the Egyptians may know that I am the LORD. And they did so.

Exodus 14:4 · KJVThe Hebrew word translated “honoured” comes from ⁨כבד⁩, the same root as ⁨כָּבוֹד⁩, showing honor as weight made manifest.

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;

2 Corinthians 4:17 · KJVLight affliction and the weight of glory extend the passage’s weight-and-light image into another scriptural voice.

THE THREAD

But the hand of the LORD was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods, even Ashdod and the coasts thereof.

1 Samuel 5:6 · KJV

“Heavy” in this verse and “glory” in 1 Samuel 6:5 share the Hebrew root ⁨כבד⁩ (k-b-d), the language of weight. One verse names the hand’s heaviness; the next gives glory and asks that the hand be lightened.

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