What Does 2 Samuel 2:18 Mean in the King James?
And there were three sons of Zeruiah there, Joab, and Abishai, and Asahel: and Asahel was as light of foot as a wild roe.
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 word describing Asahel’s speed is literally “light,” and its root also describes being “lightly esteemed” elsewhere.
THE MEANING
The verse makes speed visible in the body: Asahel’s feet are light like a gazelle’s in the open field. Nimbleness here is not an abstraction; it is a way a body moves through its ground.
THE ROOT
קַל
qal
GROWS FROM
קלל
qālal
To be light or slight; in related forms, to become slight or be treated as insignificant.
The same root that says “light” can also describe something becoming slight or being regarded as insignificant. Here it gives speed a bodily texture: Asahel moves with little apparent heaviness.
ALSO GROWS
qal: Light, nimble.
קַל
This is the word applied to Asahel’s feet, making his swiftness feel like lightness in motion.
niqlēh: Lightly esteemed, regarded as insignificant.
נִקְלֶה
This related form appears in David’s words in 1 Samuel 18:23, showing the root’s range from physical lightness to what is counted as slight.
THE PATTERN
Scripture makes movement a visible measure of capacity, showing what feet can carry and how freely they travel.
He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet: and setteth me upon my high places.And of the Gadites there separated themselves unto David into the hold to the wilderness men of might, and men of war fit for the battle, that could handle shield and buckler, whose faces were like the faces of lions, and were as swift as the roes upon the mountains;Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,THE THREAD
And Saul’s servants spake those words in the ears of David. And David said, Seemeth it to you a light thing to be a king’s son in law, seeing that I am a poor man, and lightly esteemed?The Hebrew phrase “a light thing” and the word “lightly esteemed” in David’s reply share the q-l-l root that describes Asahel’s light feet. The same word-family ranges from physical nimbleness to being regarded as slight.
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