What Does 2 Samuel 3:36 Mean in the King James?

And all the people took notice of it, and it pleased them: as whatsoever the king did pleased all the people.

2 Samuel 3:36 · KJV

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 frames the people’s pleasure as shared perception: what the king does is good in the eyes of all.

THE MEANING

The people know what is done, and the king’s every act appears good in their eyes. Their approval is collective: the verse presents one shared perception across the whole people.

THE ROOT

וַיִּיטַב

wayyiṭab

GROWS FROM

יטב

to be good, be pleasing, or fare well

“pleased them” in this verse is wayyiṭab. The Hebrew says the act “was good in their eyes,” then closes by naming what the king did as ⁨טוֹב⁩ (tov, good) in everyone’s eyes. Pleasure is held together with shared perception: the people see and receive the act as good.

ALSO GROWS

yatab: to be good or pleasing

יָטַב

This verbal form names how the act is received by the people.

heytiv: to do good or treat well

הֵיטִיב

The root also describes good as something enacted, linking the people’s response to what the king does.

וַיֵּדְעוּ

wayyede’u

GROWS FROM

ידע

to know, recognize, or perceive

“took notice” in this verse is wayyede’u. ⁨יָדַע⁩ (yada, know or perceive) can carry the sense of knowing by encounter; here, the knowing belongs to all the people together. Beside the phrase “good in their eyes,” it makes approval a shared act of recognition, grounded in what they perceive.

ALSO GROWS

yada: to know or perceive

יָדַע

The people’s notice is expressed as knowing, not merely glancing at what happened.

da’at: knowledge

דַּעַת

This noun from the same root gives the shared recognition a name.

THE PATTERN

A community’s shared recognition turns public conduct into a collective judgment of what is good.

And the thing was good in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of all his servants.

Genesis 41:37 · KJVThe same good-in-the-eyes wording makes a group’s shared perception the measure named in the sentence.

When it goeth well with the righteous, the city rejoiceth: and when the wicked perish, there is shouting.

Proverbs 11:10 · KJVThe city responds together to what happens among its people, showing a community’s shared judgment in public.

And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch:

Acts 6:5 · KJVThe whole multitude receives the proposal as pleasing, then acts from that shared approval.

THE THREAD

And David went out whithersoever Saul sent him, and behaved himself wisely: and Saul set him over the men of war, and he was accepted in the sight of all the people, and also in the sight of Saul’s servants.

1 Samuel 18:5 · KJV

The Hebrew uses the same root ⁨יטב⁩ (yṭb, be good or pleasing), rendered “accepted” here: David (⁨דָּוִד⁩, dāwīd, beloved) is received well in the eyes of all the people and Saul’s servants. The shared root links acceptance and pleasure to a community’s recognition of what is good.

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