What Does 2 Samuel 18:11 Mean in the King James?
And Joab said unto the man that told him, And, behold, thou sawest him, and why didst thou not smite him there to the ground? and I would have given thee ten shekels of silver, and a girdle.
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
Joab makes a blow sound like a paid assignment, but the offer changes its price, not its nature.
THE MEANING
A person can be pressed to injure someone through promised compensation. The verse names the demanded act plainly, striking someone down to the ground, and places silver and a belt beside it, so the person struck never disappears behind the bargain.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a reward can make violence harmless or erase the person who receives the blow.
THE ROOT
הִכִּיתוֹ
hikkitō
GROWS FROM
נכה
n-k-h
Strike, smite.
“smite him” in this verse is hikkitō. The same root names the act of striking and words for a blow or someone struck. English can make the command sound like a task; the Hebrew keeps the force of the blow in view.
ALSO GROWS
makkah: A blow; also a plague.
מַכָּה
The blow Joab proposes belongs to the same word family as a devastating strike.
mukkeh: One who is struck or wounded.
מֻכֶּה
This branch keeps the person receiving the blow present inside the action.
כֶּסֶף
kesef
GROWS FROM
כסף
k-s-p
Silver; the same root family also includes longing or yearning.
The Hebrew word family places silver beside longing. Here, the promised payment gives desire a concrete object while the demanded act remains a blow.
ALSO GROWS
kasaph: To long for, yearn.
כָּסַף
This verbal branch links the silver offered to the desire a reward can awaken.
kesef: Silver; money.
כֶּסֶף
This is the promised payment that gives the violence a price.
וְאֶתְּנָה
va'ettenah
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
Give, set, place.
“given” in this verse is va'ettenah. The verb makes the reward a promise Joab would place in the man’s hands for carrying out the strike. The exchange ties the offer directly to the violence.
ALSO GROWS
natan: To give, set, or place.
נָתַן
Joab promises to give the reward if the man strikes.
mattanah: A gift or present.
מַתָּנָה
This related noun shows how an offered gift can become part of an exchange.
THE PATTERN
When a reward is attached to betrayal or harm, another person’s safety becomes a transaction.
And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous.And the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and said unto her, Entice him, and see wherein his great strength lieth, and by what means we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict him: and we will give thee every one of us eleven hundred pieces of silver.And said unto them, What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver.THE THREAD
And it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out unto his brethren, and looked on their burdens: and he spied an Egyptian smiting an Hebrew, one of his brethren.The Hebrew verb Joab uses for striking shares its root with the word for the Egyptian striking a Hebrew. That shared word keeps the physical violence in view, whether it appears as oppression or is offered as a paid task.
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