What Does 2 Samuel 21:5 Mean in the King James?
And they answered the king, The man that consumed us, and that devised against us that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coasts of Israel,
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 threat is not merely to wound a people but to bring their very presence to an end.
THE MEANING
The verse names a threat aimed at your continued presence: someone means to consume you and remove you from every part of the land. The accusation brings that intent into the open before the king. The violence described seeks to leave no place where you remain.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that this is only incidental harm: the verse names a deliberate plan for total removal.
THE ROOT
כִּלָּנוּ
kîllānû
GROWS FROM
כלה
To be finished; to finish, consume, or bring to an end.
“consumed us” in this verse is kîllānû. כִּלָּנוּ comes from כלה, whose range includes both finishing and bringing something to an end. The following phrase sharpens that ending into an attempt to leave no one standing anywhere in Israel: the harm is named as a plan for total removal.
ALSO GROWS
kālāh: To be complete or come to an end.
כָּלָה
The same root can describe completion; here its ending carries a destructive force.
kelāyāh: Destruction, wasting away.
כְּלָיָה
This branch makes the root’s destructive edge explicit: consuming means bringing something toward its end.
THE PATTERN
When power experiences a people as a threat, its plans can turn toward removing them from the land, the nation, or life.
Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.THE THREAD
For I am with thee, saith the LORD, to save thee: though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished.The same כלה root appears twice in “make a full end,” then denies that full ending to the addressed “thee.” The shared root makes the distinction audible: the ending named here is not the only outcome carried by the word.
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