What Does 2 Samuel 11:20 Mean in the King James?

And if so be that the king’s wrath arise, and he say unto thee, Wherefore approached ye so nigh unto the city when ye did fight? knew ye not that they would shoot from the wall?

2 Samuel 11:20 · 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

The Hebrew root behind “shoot” also carries “direct”: the arrow is not merely released but aimed toward the fighters.

THE MEANING

You hear an explanation prepared before the king’s anger rises: the fighters draw close to a wall from which arrows can reach them. Danger and anticipated blame sit in the same frame, with exposed bodies becoming part of the account the king will hear. The words explain the risk without making it disappear.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The lie that a prepared explanation can make the human cost of a decision disappear. The arrows and exposed bodies remain visible even as someone rehearses what to say to an angry king.

THE ROOT

יוֹרוּ

yoru

GROWS FROM

ירה

yarah

To throw or cast; to shoot, with a related sense of pointing or directing.

The verb ⁨יוֹרוּ⁩ (yoru, shoot) comes from ⁨יָרָה⁩ (yarah), a root also commonly connected to ⁨תּוֹרָה⁩ (torah, instruction or direction). The same root family holds both a cast shot and the act of directing, making the arrows a force aimed toward those exposed.

ALSO GROWS

yarah: Throw, cast, shoot

יָרָה

This is the root verb behind the arrows launched from the wall.

torah: Instruction, direction

תּוֹרָה

Commonly connected to the root’s sense of directing, it reveals the idea of a force or path being aimed.

תַּעֲלֶה

ta’aleh

GROWS FROM

עלה

ʿalah

To go up, rise, ascend.

“arise” in this verse is ta’aleh. The king’s wrath is described as going up. Paired with the heat-word for wrath, the phrase gives anger an upward movement: heat climbing rather than a still abstraction.

ALSO GROWS

olah: That which goes up; a burnt offering

עֹלָה

The word preserves the root’s image of something ascending.

aliyah: Ascent, going up

עֲלִיָּה

This familiar branch makes the upward motion in the king’s rising anger plain.

חֲמַת

chamat

GROWS FROM

חמה

chamah

Heat, being hot; fury understood as heat.

The king’s wrath carries the image of heat within its Hebrew word family. Beside the verb “rise,” it reads as heat that climbs, giving the anticipated anger a physical quality.

ALSO GROWS

cham: Hot

חַם

This adjective makes the root’s basic heat concrete.

chammah: The sun

חַמָּה

The sun is a source of heat in the same word family, extending the image of wrath as heat.

THE PATTERN

Arrows make distance part of the threat: force can reach an exposed body before the attacker is near.

And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers hit him; and he was sore wounded of the archers.

1 Samuel 31:3 · KJVThe archers wound Saul from a distance, making the body vulnerable before any hand-to-hand encounter.

For, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart.

Psalm 11:2 · KJVA hidden archer prepares a shot that can reach its target from afar.

Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

Ephesians 6:16 · KJVThe image of fiery darts turns the projectile into an attack that crosses distance toward its target.

THE THREAD

For, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart.

Psalm 11:2 · KJV

Psalm 11 uses the same Hebrew root for “shoot,” where an archer aims an arrow at someone from concealment. The shared root links the wall’s arrows to a broader image of danger directed toward exposed people.

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