1 Samuel 14:34

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Saul said, Disperse yourselves among the people, and tell them, Bring me here every man his ox, and every man his sheep, and kill them here, and eat; and don't sin against Yahweh in eating with the blood. All the people brought every man his ox with him that night, and killed them there.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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שְׂיֵ֗הוּ

seh

H7716

“sheep · his”

Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Construct + Suffix, Personal, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular

Appears 47× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 22:7

Full BDB Definition

Origin: probably from H7582 through the idea of pushing out to graze

TWOT: 2237

one of a flock, lamb, sheep, goat, young sheep, young goat - sheep, goat - flock (collective)

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

30: words
20: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Shared distinctive vocabulary

שְׂיֵ֗הוּ sheep H7716 occurs in 39 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

10 verbs
14 nouns
1 pronoun
3 prepositions
1 adverb
1 particle

Verb forms

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר Qal · Sequential Imperfect
פֻּ֣צוּ Qal · Imperative
וַאֲמַרְתֶּ֣ם Qal · Sequential Perfect
הַגִּ֣ישׁוּ Hiphil · Imperative
וּשְׁחַטְתֶּ֤ם Qal · Sequential Perfect
וַאֲכַלְתֶּ֔ם Qal · Sequential Perfect
תֶחֶטְא֥וּ Qal · Imperfect
לֶאֱכֹ֣ל Qal · Infinitive Construct
וַיַּגִּ֨שׁוּ Hiphil · Sequential Imperfect
וַיִּשְׁחֲטוּ Qal · Sequential Imperfect

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

אִ֨ישׁ man H376 ×3
וַיֹּ֣אמֶר to say H559 ×2
בָעָ֡ם people H5971 ×2
הַגִּ֣ישׁוּ to approach H5066 ×2
שׁוֹר֜וֹ ox H7794 ×2
וּשְׁחַטְתֶּ֤ם to slaughter H7819 ×2
וַאֲכַלְתֶּ֔ם to eat H398 ×2
אֵלַי֩ to H413 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 54 words from the Hebrew and 59 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 30 Hebrew tokens and 50 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew 1 Samuel 14:34 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר שָׁא֣וּל פֻּ֣צוּ בָעָ֡ם וַאֲמַרְתֶּ֣ם לָהֶ֡ם הַגִּ֣ישׁוּ אֵלַי֩ אִ֨ישׁ שׁוֹר֜וֹ וְאִ֣ישׁ שְׂיֵ֗הוּ וּשְׁחַטְתֶּ֤ם בָּזֶה֙ וַאֲכַלְתֶּ֔ם וְלֹֽא תֶחֶטְא֥וּ לַֽיהוָ֖ה לֶאֱכֹ֣ל אֶל הַדָּ֑ם וַיַּגִּ֨שׁוּ כָל הָעָ֜ם אִ֣ישׁ שׁוֹר֧וֹ בְיָד֛וֹ הַלַּ֖יְלָה וַיִּשְׁחֲטוּ שָֽׁם

Saul said, Disperse yourselves among the people, and tell them, Bring me here every man his ox, and every man his sheep, and kill them here, and eat; and don't sin against Yahweh in eating with the blood. All the people brought every man his ox with him that night, and killed them there.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 1 Samuel 14:34 Septuagint · lemma form

καί εἶπον σαούλ διασπείρω ἐν ὁ λαός καί εἶπον αὐτός προςἄγω ἐνταῦθα ἕκαστος ὁ μόσχος αὐτός καί ἕκαστος ὁ πρόβατον αὐτός καί σφάζω ἐπί οὗτος καί οὐ μή ἁμαρτάνω ὁ κύριος ὁ ἐσθίω σύν ὁ αἷμα καί προςἄγω πᾶς ὁ λαός ἕκαστος ὁ ἐν ὁ χείρ αὐτός καί σφάζω ἐκεῖ

And Saul said, Disperse yourselves among the people, and tell them to bring hither every one his calf, and every one his sheep: and let them kill it on this stone and sin not against the Lord in eating with the blood: and the people brought each one that which was in his hand, and they killed them there.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

וַאֲמַר שָׁאוּל אִתְבַּדָרוּ בְעַמָא וְתֵימְרוּן לְהוֹן קְרִיבוּ לְוָתִי גְבַר תּוֹרֵיהּ וּגְבַר אִימְרֵיהּ וְתִיכְסוּן הָכָא וְתֵיכְלוּן וְלָא תְחוֹבוּן קֳדָם יְיָ לְמֵיכַל עַל דְמָא וְקָרִיבוּ כָל עַמָא גְבַר תּוֹרֵיהּ בִּידֵיהּ בְּלֵילְיָא וּנְכִיסוּ תַמָן:

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on 1 Samuel 14:34 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

1Sa 14:34 And Saul said, Disperse yourselves among the people, and say unto them, Bring me hither every man his ox, and every man his sheep, and slay [them] here, and eat; and sin not against the LORD in eating with the blood. And all the people brought every man his ox with him that night, and slew [them] there.

Ver. 34. And sin not against the Lord.] When himself cared not to sin in going about to pursue the Philistines without asking counsel of God, if the high priest had not interposed. {1Sa 14:36}

And all the people brought every man his ox.] Or, What other cattle soever they had. But this was a good while a-doing, if they were to bring all to that one great stone; which would be very troublesome to such as were so hasty and hungry.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And Saul said, disperse yourselves among the people,.... In the camp, some one way, and some another, and make proclamation throughout it; this he said to some of his officers, whom he sent out as heralds, to publish his will and pleasure:

and say unto them, bring me hither every man his ox, and every man his sheep, and slay them here; on the great stone he had ordered to roll to the place where he was:

and eat them; in the same place, being rightly slain, and the blood let out; all this was to be done, the slaying of the beasts, and eating them, in the presence of Saul, and under his inspection, that every thing might be done decently, and in order, and according to the law of God:

and sin not against the Lord, in eating with the blood; as some of them had done, Sa1 14:32 and all the people brought every man his ox with him; and his sheep also, though not expressed, yet to be supplied from the preceding clause: and these every man brought "with him that night"; the Jewish Rabbins (c) are divided about these creatures slain, whether for sacrifices or common food; and those that think sacrifices are meant dispute whether it was lawful to slay them in the night, which some allow to be lawful, if on a small and private altar, but not upon a large and public one; but these were slain no doubt for common food, which all agree might be slain in the night:

and slew them there; before Saul, and on the great stone rolled unto him.

(c) T. Bab. Zebachim, fol. 120. 1.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

With the blood, as you have done. (Menochius)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

And his sheep, which is to be understood out of the foregoing words.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

Spread out among the people. Announce in many places, and let the announcers disperse among the people.

And you shall slaughter [them] here. Here in the place of slaughtering. Another explanation is, he examined a slaughtering knife for them.

That night. The ordinary [i.e., non-sanctified] animals were slaughtered at night. Thus it is explained in [Maseches] Zevochim.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

1 Samuel, in the Historical, opens this verse with 30 words (20 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is seh (“sheep”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word seh carries the sense “sheep.” How does it shape the verse?
Genesis 22:7 shares the word «sheep» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
“man” occurs 3× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
The verb «וַיֹּ֣אמֶר» is Qal Sequential Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and John Gill's Exposition read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 30 Hebrew ↔ 50 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 18 words in this verse.
“man” occurs 3× in this single verse.
20 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 30 words in this verse.