What Does 1 Samuel 7:13 Mean in the King James?
So the Philistines were subdued, and they came no more into the coast of Israel: and the hand of the LORD was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel.
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 Hebrew word for “subdued” also names being humbled, holding forced lowering and humility within the same root.
THE MEANING
A threatening power can be stopped at the boundary while the force restraining it remains active. The Philistines no longer enter Israel’s territory, yet the LORD’s hand remains against them through Samuel’s days; the end of visible incursions is not the same as the end of opposition.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
When a threat stops appearing, the conflict must already be fully over.
THE ROOT
וַיִּכָּנְעוּ
wayyikkaneʿu
GROWS FROM
כנע
k-n-ʿ
To be brought low, humbled, or subdued.
The root holds together being subdued and being humbled. English can make “subdued” sound like simple defeat, but the Hebrew word also appears when people humble themselves; the root joins the lowering, while the passage shows who undergoes it.
ALSO GROWS
nikhnaʿu: They were humbled or subdued.
נִכְנְעוּ
This form uses the same root and shows that the Philistines’ loss of reach is a lowering of their power.
hikhniʿa: He brought low or subdued.
הִכְנִיעַ
This causative form makes the root’s force explicit: something is brought down under another’s power.
בִּגְבוּל
bigvul
GROWS FROM
גבל
g-b-l
To mark or set a boundary.
The phrase rendered “coast of Israel” uses a word for boundary or territory, not only a shoreline. This root turns the Philistines’ subduing into a concrete change of reach: they no longer cross into Israel’s domain.
ALSO GROWS
gevul: Boundary or territory.
גְּבוּל
This is the word used here: the limit they no longer cross.
higbil: To set a boundary or limit.
הִגְבִּיל
This related form reveals the root’s active side: a boundary defines where power may reach.
THE PATTERN
A stronger rule can bring threatening or resistant power low, while the same lowering can also appear as human humility.
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.Whereupon the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves; and they said, The LORD is righteous.Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.THE THREAD
Whereupon the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves; and they said, The LORD is righteous.The same Hebrew root describes the Philistines being subdued here and the king and princes humbling themselves there. The shared word-family holds both imposed lowering and humility together, while the surrounding verses reveal the different agents.
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