What Does 2 Samuel 22:38 Mean in the King James?
I have pursued mine enemies, and destroyed them; and turned not again until I had consumed them.
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 line measures pursuit by its endpoint: the speaker does not turn back until the enemies are brought to their end.
THE MEANING
The verse places before you a voice that pursues its enemies without turning back until they are consumed. Its endpoint is their total destruction, and the violence remains explicit.
THE ROOT
כַּלּוֹתָם
kallotam
GROWS FROM
כלה
k-l-h
Finish, bring to an end, or be complete.
The root ties “consumed” to bringing something to its end, so this is more than a temporary defeat. The pursuit ends when the enemies are finished.
ALSO GROWS
killah: Finish, consume, bring to an end.
כִּלָּה
This verb form makes the pursuit’s endpoint completion: the enemies are brought to their end.
kilyon: Destruction, exhaustion, complete ruin.
כִּלָּיוֹן
This branch carries the root’s sense of an end reached through utter destruction.
אֶרְדְּפָה
erdefah
GROWS FROM
רדף
r-d-p
Chase or pursue.
“pursued” in this verse is erdefah. This root names both pursuit and persecution, exposing the pressure inside the verb: what the speaker calls pursuit can be felt as persecution by those being chased. The line keeps the pursuer’s relentless agency in view.
ALSO GROWS
rodef: Pursuer, persecutor.
רֹדֵף
The pursuer is the one applying the force described in the verse.
redifah: Pursuit, persecution.
רְדִיפָה
This noun shows how the same act can be named from the experience of those being chased.
אָשׁוּב
ashuv
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
sh-v-b
Turn, return, go back.
“turned” in this verse is ashuv. The speaker’s “not again” denies a turn back. The same root can describe returning or restoring; here, its negation holds the pursuit on one course until the stated endpoint.
ALSO GROWS
shuv: Turn, return, go back.
שׁוּב
This is the root idea behind the speaker’s refusal to turn back.
heshiv: Bring back, return, restore.
הֵשִׁיב
This related form shows the root’s broader reach into returning something or someone.
THE PATTERN
Pursuit is bounded by its object: it continues until the target is overtaken, found, or attained.
But the Egyptians pursued after them, all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, and his horsemen, and his army, and overtook them encamping by the sea, beside Pi-hahiroth, before Baal-zephon.What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.THE THREAD
I have pursued mine enemies, and overtaken them: neither did I turn again till they were consumed.This parallel line shares the Hebrew roots for pursue (רדף, radaph), turn or return (שׁוּב, shuv), and finish or consume (כלה, kalah). Its “overtaken them” names the hinge between relentless pursuit and the enemies’ final end.
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