What Does 2 Samuel 3:17 Mean in the King James?
And Abner had communication with the elders of Israel, saying, Ye sought for David in times past to be king over you:
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 people’s search is remembered as a search for David, the beloved, so the verse binds authority to the nature carried in his name.
THE MEANING
A longing for the beloved to govern can be present before it has a voice. Spoken words can uncover a desire already carried within and bring it into the shared matter at hand.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that a desire begins only when it is spoken: the words reveal a search already underway.
THE ROOT
דָּוִד
Dāwîḏ
GROWS FROM
דוד
d-w-d
Beloved; dear one.
English hears David as a personal name; the Hebrew name is commonly linked to דּוֹד (dod), beloved. That makes the people’s desire more intimate: they seek a particular beloved figure to govern them, not kingship as an abstraction.
ALSO GROWS
dod: Beloved one; also used for an uncle.
דּוֹד
This related word brings the name’s beloved quality into view.
dodim: Loves or caresses, in poetic usage.
דּוֹדִים
This poetic form keeps the root’s association with love close to the name David.
מְבַקְשִׁים
mevaqqeshim
GROWS FROM
בקש
b-q-sh
Seek, search for, request.
“sought” in this verse is mevaqqeshim. The Hebrew form describes an ongoing seeking: they were seeking David. This root joins desire with movement toward its object, holding an inner longing and an outward search together.
ALSO GROWS
mevaqqesh: One who seeks.
מְבַקֵּשׁ
The participle shares the verse’s sense of seeking as an active orientation.
biqqesh: He sought or requested.
בִּקֵּשׁ
The verb can carry both searching and asking, linking the people’s desire with a request for rule.
דְּבַר
devar
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
Speak; word or matter.
English communication captures an exchange; the Hebrew also lets you hear davar, word and matter in one noun. Abner’s speaking places the people’s earlier desire before the elders as the matter under discussion.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
The same word can name both what is spoken and the matter being discussed.
dibber: He spoke.
דִּבֵּר
This verbal form connects the spoken message to the word that carries it.
THE PATTERN
A people’s desire for a ruler becomes visible when recognition is spoken together.
Also in time past, when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that leddest out and broughtest in Israel: and the LORD said to thee, Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be a captain over Israel.All these men of war, that could keep rank, came with a perfect heart to Hebron, to make David king over all Israel: and all the rest also of Israel were of one heart to make David king.And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.THE THREAD
But all Israel and Judah loved David, because he went out and came in before them.This verse lets the beloved quality carried in David’s name ring through the people’s own response: all Israel and Judah loved him. Here the beloved is also the one they seek to govern them.
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