What Does 2 Samuel 4:4 Mean in the King James?
And Jonathan, Saul’s son, had a son that was lame of his feet. He was five years old when the tidings came of Saul and Jonathan out of Jezreel, and his nurse took him up, and fled: and it came to pass, as she made haste to flee, that he fell, and became lame. And his name was Mephibosheth.
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 for “became lame” shares its root with “pass over,” so the verse names his injury with a word that also carries the motion of crossing.
THE MEANING
In a hurried escape, care and harm occupy the same moment: the nurse carries the child as she flees, and he falls, leaving his feet disabled. The verse names the injury without assigning him blame or making it the whole of who he is.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the assumption that harm during an act of care proves that care was absent: his nurse is carrying him as she flees when he falls.
THE ROOT
וַיִּפָּסֵחַ
wayyippāsēaḥ
GROWS FROM
פסח
To limp or hobble; in another biblical usage, to pass over or leap across.
“became lame” in this verse is wayyippāsēaḥ. The root holds both an altered step and the movement of passing over. In this verse it describes the child’s changed gait; elsewhere the same consonants describe passing over, a motion the English word “lame” does not carry.
ALSO GROWS
pissēaḥ: Lame; one who limps.
פִּסֵּחַ
This form names the child’s bodily condition and shares the root’s consonants פסח.
pāsaḥ: To pass over or leap across.
פָּסַח
This is the verb used for passing over in Exodus 12:13, revealing the root’s other movement within the same consonant pattern.
אֹמַנְתּוֹ
ʾōmantô
GROWS FROM
אמן
To be firm; to support or sustain.
The Hebrew word for his nurse belongs to the אמן family of firmness and support. The verse makes that care physical: she lifts him and runs, and the fall does not erase that he was being carried.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāman: To be firm, support, or sustain.
אָמַן
This verb shows the sustaining sense beneath the word for nurse.
ʾĕmûnâ: Firmness, steadiness, or trust.
אֱמוּנָה
The same consonants connect care with steadiness: the nurse’s role is to support the child.
וַיִּפֹּל
wayyippōl
GROWS FROM
נפל
To fall or tumble down.
The verb in the verse is וַיִּפֹּל (wayyippōl, “and he fell”), from נפל. The fall is the hinge between the nurse’s hurried flight and the child’s altered step; the Hebrew presents it as a specific event, not an identity.
ALSO GROWS
nāphal: To fall or tumble.
נָפַל
This is the root verb that names the event in the verse.
nōphĕlîm: Those who fall.
נֹפְלִים
This plural form keeps the same root consonants and shows how Hebrew can speak of falling as something people undergo.
THE PATTERN
An injury can remain visible without becoming the only fact that shapes a person’s continuing story.
And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh.So Mephibosheth dwelt in Jerusalem: for he did eat continually at the king’s table; and was lame on both his feet.But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind:THE THREAD
And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.The verb translated “became lame” and the verb translated “pass over” share פסח (pāsaḥ, “limp” or “pass over”). In one verse the root describes a changed step; in the other, movement passing over a house.
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