What Does 2 Samuel 12:2 Mean in the King James?
The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds:
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
His many only become legible as excess when the story places them beside another man’s one.
THE MEANING
This scene makes abundance visible as a relation: one person has many flocks and herds while the poor man beside him has one lamb. Plenty can coexist with another person’s near-total lack. The count itself is not the whole meaning; what that abundance meets in the life beside it matters.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The presence of abundance in one life does not mean everyone nearby has enough: the rich man’s many coexist with the poor man’s one.
THE ROOT
הַרְבֵּה מְאֹד
harbeh me'od
GROWS FROM
רבה
To become many, increase, or grow great.
“exceeding many” in this verse is harbeh me'od. The wording says “many” and intensifies it with me’od, “very” or “exceedingly.” The root also yields words for greatness and multitude, framing his wealth as gathered increase whose scale the next verse sets beside one lamb.
ALSO GROWS
rav: Great, much, or many.
רַב
The same root gives abundance its sense of great measure.
rov: Multitude or abundance.
רֹב
This branch names the collected mass of what the rich man possesses.
hirbah: Increased or made many.
הִרְבָּה
It shows the active growth contained in the idea of “many.”
הֶעָשִׁיר
he'ashir
GROWS FROM
עשר
To be rich or possess wealth.
The rich man is named by a word from the same root that names wealth itself, tying the person to the condition of abundance. Beside the poor man’s single lamb, that word becomes a measure of unequal possession.
ALSO GROWS
osher: Wealth.
עֹשֶׁר
The noun makes explicit the abundance implied by calling him rich.
he'eshir: To make rich or enrich.
הֶעֱשִׁיר
This branch presents wealth as something that can accumulate or be increased.
THE PATTERN
Surplus becomes injustice when it grows by taking from those who have less.
And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man’s lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him.He that oppresseth the poor to increase his riches, and he that giveth to the rich, shall surely come to want.Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.THE THREAD
But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter.The poor man’s one lamb is set directly against the rich man’s many. That contrast turns abundance into the scale by which the taking in the next verse becomes visible.
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