What Does 2 Samuel 5:2 Mean in the King James?
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.
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 LORD names Israel’s captain through a shepherd’s work: bringing the people through and feeding them.
THE MEANING
Your responsibilities take shape in this joined work: guiding people through what they face and nourishing what has been entrusted to you. Israel remains the LORD’s people, so leadership is a charge of care for lives that belong to God.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that authority is proved by rank alone; the verse measures a captain by whether the people are guided and fed.
THE ROOT
וְרָעִיתָ
wə-rāʿîtā
GROWS FROM
רעה
r-ʿ-h
To pasture, tend, or shepherd.
“feed” in this verse is wə-rāʿîtā. The Hebrew verb can hold more than supplying food: it names the shepherd’s tending of a flock. The verse gathers nourishment and guidance into one charge, so that Israel’s captain is to shepherd the people who belong to the LORD.
ALSO GROWS
shepherd: A person who tends a flock.
רֹעֶה
The same root makes the image behind “feed” explicit: the leader’s work is shepherding.
pasture: Grazing ground or pasture.
מִרְעֶה
Feeding includes leading the flock to what sustains it, not merely giving it food.
נָגִיד
nāgîd
GROWS FROM
נגד
n-g-d
To be in front or conspicuous; in a related verb form, to declare or make known.
“captain” in this verse is nāgîd. The title carries the image of someone set before the people. Its root also yields a verb for making something known, giving leadership a visible, public character.
ALSO GROWS
neged: Before, in front of, or opposite.
נֶגֶד
It makes visible the position carried by a captain: standing before the people one leads.
declare: To tell or make known.
הִגִּיד
The related verb links the root’s idea of what stands out to what is brought into view.
THE PATTERN
Leadership takes the form of guiding people through their movements and sustaining them as a shepherd sustains a flock.
Which may go out before them, and which may go in before them, and which may lead them out, and which may bring them in; that the congregation of the LORD be not as sheep which have no shepherd.A Psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.THE THREAD
So he fed them according to the integrity of his heart; and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands.The verb translated “fed” comes from רעה (raʿah), meaning to shepherd or tend, the same root as “feed” in 2 Samuel 5:2. Here nourishment is joined to guidance, showing the shape of shepherd leadership in both heart and hands.
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