What Does Genesis 26:15 Mean in the King James?
For all the wells which his father’s servants had digged in the days of Abraham his father, the Philistines had stopped them, and filled them with earth.
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 verse shows a water source obstructed by covering: the earth around the well is packed into its access.
THE MEANING
A source that once supplied water is blocked and covered until its water cannot be reached. But covering and source are not the same: what is buried can be reopened.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
When access closes, the source itself is gone.
THE ROOT
חָפְרוּ
chafru
GROWS FROM
ח־פ־ר
To dig or excavate.
“digged” in this verse is chafru. The root names the work of opening the earth to reach what lies beneath it. Here the same earth that is opened in digging is packed back into the well, turning access to water into obstruction.
ALSO GROWS
chofēr: One who digs; a digger.
חֹפֵר
It makes the agency visible: access to the well begins with someone opening the earth.
chafirah: Digging; excavation.
חֲפִירָה
It carries the root’s physical sense of making an opening through the ground.
סְתָמוּם
setamum
GROWS FROM
ס־ת־ם
To close, shut up, or seal.
The root gives “stopped” the sense of sealing the well, not merely interrupting its flow. Together with the digging root, it reveals the reversal in the scene: earth first opens a route to water, then fills that route and closes it.
ALSO GROWS
satúm: Closed; sealed.
סָתוּם
This form shows that stopping can leave something inaccessible beneath a closure.
setimah: Closure; blockage.
סְתִימָה
The blockage names what the earth does to the well’s access.
THE PATTERN
A source of life may be obstructed, yet its water can be drawn again or rise anew.
And Isaac digged again the wells of water, which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father; for the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham: and he called their names after the names by which his father had called them.Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.THE THREAD
And he said, For these seven ewe lambs shalt thou take of my hand, that they may be a witness unto me, that I have digged this well.Both verses use חָפַר (chaphar, “dig” or “excavate”), linking Abraham’s well to the wells later filled with earth. The shared root holds their opening and obstruction in the same image.
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