What Does 2 Samuel 11:27 Mean in the King James?
And when the mourning was past, David sent and fetched her to his house, and she became his wife, and bare him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.
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
A wedding cannot turn a deed that is evil in the LORD’s sight into a good one.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks plainly now: a deed remains evil before the LORD even when mourning ends and its author gives the aftermath the form of marriage. That outward settlement does not erase the taking that came before it. David’s status cannot rename the deed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A powerful person cannot make a wrong clean by giving it a respectable ending.
THE ROOT
וַיֵּרַע
wayyēraʿ
GROWS FROM
רָעַע
rāʿaʿ
To be bad or evil.
The KJV’s “displeased” conveys the LORD’s response; the Hebrew also names the deed itself as evil in the LORD’s eyes. That judgment still stands after the mourning ends and the marriage gives the aftermath an outwardly settled form.
ALSO GROWS
raʿ: Evil, bad.
רַע
This adjective names the quality the verse assigns to David’s deed.
mərēʿîm: Evildoers.
מְרֵעִים
This form from the same root applies the same moral word to those who do evil.
דָּוִד
Dāwid
GROWS FROM
דּוֹד
dōd
Beloved.
David’s name carries the nature of “the beloved,” but beloved status does not shelter his deed from judgment. The verse holds the king accountable for what he does.
ALSO GROWS
dōd: Beloved; beloved one.
דּוֹד
This is the root sense carried by David’s name.
dōdîm: Affections, caresses.
דּוֹדִים
The related word for intimate affection sharpens the contrast between the name’s beloved nature and the deed judged evil.
THE PATTERN
Outward arrangements cannot hide or rename a deed that the LORD sees as evil.
And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.THE THREAD
Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.Nathan uses the same רעע root when he names David’s act as evil in the LORD’s sight. He makes explicit what 11:27 already says: the deed remains evil after the mourning and marriage.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us