What Does 1 Samuel 9:4 Mean in the King James?
And he passed through mount Ephraim, and passed through the land of Shalisha, but they found them not: then they passed through the land of Shalim, and there they were not: and he passed through the land of the Benjamites, but they found them not.
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
Hebrew repeats ʿāvar, “cross through,” while withholding matsa, “find or encounter”: the search advances across the map without reaching its object.
THE MEANING
You can move through one named place after another and still not encounter what you seek. Each boundary advances the journey while the answer remains absent. The verse leaves the distance between searching and finding visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that covering more ground guarantees you will find what you seek dissolves here: the travelers cross several territories and still do not find.
THE ROOT
עָבַר
ʿāvar
GROWS FROM
עבר
Cross over, pass through, go beyond.
“passed through” in this verse is ʿāvar. The same verb repeats as the travelers cross successive territories, making movement the verse’s refrain. English reports the route, while the Hebrew root holds each crossing together as one continuing passage.
ALSO GROWS
maʿavār: Passage, crossing.
מַעֲבָר
The repeated crossings form a passage through named lands, even though the search does not reach its object.
ʿavērāh: Transgression, a crossing or breach.
עֲבֵרָה
The same root can carry the image of going beyond a boundary; here it describes literal movement across territory.
מָצָא
māṣāʾ
GROWS FROM
מצא
Find, come upon, encounter.
“found” in this verse is māṣāʾ. The verse repeats the failure to find, using a verb that can also describe encountering favor or finding life. What remains absent is not only an object on a route; it is the encounter the search seeks.
ALSO GROWS
māṣāʾ ḥēn: Find favor.
מָצָא חֵן
The same verb can name an encounter with favor, showing the breadth of what “finding” can hold.
māṣāʾ ḥayyīm: Find life.
מָצָא חַיִּים
Finding can mean reaching life itself; here the sought encounter remains out of reach.
אֶפְרַיִם
Efrayim
GROWS FROM
פרה
Bear fruit, be fruitful.
Ephraim is tied to parah, “to bear fruit”; Joseph’s naming explanation explicitly gives that association in Genesis 41:52. The fruitful name lies among the lands crossed while the search yields no finding, a quiet echo in the place-name, not an explanation of the failed search.
ALSO GROWS
pārāh: Bear fruit, be fruitful.
פָּרָה
This is the root associated with Ephraim’s name and its language of fruitfulness.
perī: Fruit.
פְּרִי
This related word makes the fruitfulness carried by Ephraim’s name concrete.
THE PATTERN
Scripture lets searching and finding remain distinct: effort can continue while the sought encounter is absent.
And when they urged him till he was ashamed, he said, Send. They sent therefore fifty men; and they sought three days, but found him not.And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him.Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.THE THREAD
And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.Genesis uses the same root, ʿāvar (עָבַר), for crossing a land toward a named place. Beside the repeated crossings in Samuel, it clarifies that passing through describes movement on a route; it does not by itself mean finding what is sought.
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