What Does 2 Samuel 15:33 Mean in the King James?
Unto whom David said, If thou passest on with me, then thou shalt be a burden unto me:
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
The Hebrew calls this companion a load laid on the speaker to carry, so closeness and added weight occupy the same sentence.
THE MEANING
This verse names the difference between closeness and support: someone can be beside the reader and still add weight to what the reader is carrying. The relationship matters, and the shared road can still be too much.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that loyalty automatically makes someone’s presence helpful; here, traveling together would add to the speaker’s load.
THE ROOT
מַשָּׂא
massa
GROWS FROM
נשא
To lift, carry, or bear.
The word for “burden” grows from the root נשא (nasa), “to carry.” The load is inseparable from the act of bearing it: the strain lies in what must be carried along.
ALSO GROWS
nasa: Lift, carry, bear.
נָשָׂא
This verb makes the root inside “burden” visible: a burden is something borne.
nose avon: Bearing crookedness; an expression used for forgiving or removing it.
נֹשֵׂא עָוֹן
The same carrying-root can describe bearing another’s crookedness, showing that what weighs on someone can also be carried away.
דָּוִד
Dawid
GROWS FROM
דוד
Beloved; beloved one.
David’s name carries the sense of “beloved.” That relational nature sits beside the blunt recognition that affection does not make every shared journey easy to bear.
ALSO GROWS
dod: Beloved, lover; also uncle.
דּוֹד
The root makes the name’s language of affection audible in this exchange.
dodim: Loves or caresses.
דּוֹדִים
This related word keeps affection in view alongside the verse’s plain assessment of weight.
THE PATTERN
Presence affects capacity: it can add weight to one person’s load or help bear the load in common.
Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone.I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me.Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.THE THREAD
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.The verb translated “borne” is נָשָׂא (nasa), the root that forms מַשָּׂא (massa), “burden,” in this verse. Here, a companion adds weight to the speaker; Isaiah turns the same carrying-root toward bearing what weighs on others.
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