What Does 2 Samuel 1:11 Mean in the King James?
Then David took hold on his clothes, and rent them; and likewise all the men that were with him:
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
David, the beloved, tears his clothes with the same Hebrew verb later used to tear the heart: grief appears as rupture made visible.
THE MEANING
David’s loss does not remain abstract: he tears his clothes, and the men around him join the visible grief. Mourning takes bodily form and becomes shared. The verse speaks now to grief that cannot stay hidden inside.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that real grief must stay silent, private, or composed: here, loss breaks through the body’s covering and draws others into the same expression.
THE ROOT
וַיִּקְרָעֵם
wayyiqraʿēm
GROWS FROM
קרע
q-r-ʿ
to tear, rend, split open
“rent” in this verse is wayyiqraʿēm. The verb carries the blunt action of tearing: grief takes shape as a rupture in what covers the body. Joel 2:13 uses the same root for the heart, binding the visible tear in a garment to an inward one.
ALSO GROWS
qāraʿ: To tear apart or rend.
קָרַע
This is the verb David enacts when he tears his clothes.
qirʿū: A plural command to tear or rend.
קִרְעוּ
Joel 2:13 directs this same root toward the heart, carrying the tear from the garment inward.
דָּוִד
Dāwid
GROWS FROM
דוד
d-w-d
beloved; beloved one
David’s name carries the sense of the beloved, bringing belovedness into a scene of loss. That name-nature sharpens the verse: rupture is felt where attachment is.
ALSO GROWS
dōd: A beloved person or close relative.
דּוֹד
The name David carries this sense of belovedness into the scene.
dōdîm: Expressions of love or affection.
דּוֹדִים
This branch makes the root’s connection to affection explicit, setting belovedness beside grief.
THE PATTERN
A tear in clothing makes inner rupture visible, while the same tearing can be directed toward the heart itself.
And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days.And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.Which when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, crying out,THE THREAD
And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.The same Hebrew verb that tears clothing here is directed at the heart in Joel. The shared root holds the outward sign and inward rupture together, showing how far the tear reaches.
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