וַיֹּ֤אמֶר לוֹ֙ הָעָ֔ם כַּדָּבָ֥ר הַזֶּ֖ה לֵאמֹ֑ר כֹּ֣ה יֵעָשֶׂ֔ה לָאִ֖ישׁ אֲשֶׁ֥ר יַכֶּֽנּוּ
The people answered him after this manner, saying, So shall it be done to the man who kills him.
World English Bible · Public Domain
1 Samuel 17:27
Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex) 1 Samuel 17:27 appears in the Hebrew Old Testament. The text above is from the Westminster Leningrad Codex. Each word links to its Strong’s number, a concise gloss, and parsing drawn from the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible morphology. Click any word for its full Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB) entry.
English Translation
The people answered him after this manner, saying, So shall it be done to the man who kills him.
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Compare translations 3
The same verse in 3 English versions, stacked beneath the original-language interlinear above. Click any original word for its lexicon entry.
Each is an independent rendering of the whole verse — the interlinear is not word-aligned to these translations.
Highlighted words mark where these versions differ — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment.
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World English Bible Public Domain
The people answered him after this manner, saying, So shall it be done to the man who kills him.
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King James Version Public Domain
And the people answered him after this manner, saying, So shall it be done to the man that killeth him.
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unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
And the people spoke to him like this word, saying, “Thus it will be done for the man who strikes him.”
unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult).
Show all 18 translations
Every available English version of this verse, each an independent rendering of the whole verse.
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World English Bible Public Domain
The people answered him after this manner, saying, So shall it be done to the man who kills him.
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Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
The people told him about the offer, saying, “That is what will be done for the man who kills him.”
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Majority Standard Bible Public Domain
The people told him about the offer, saying, “That is what will be done for the man who kills him.”
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King James Version Public Domain
And the people answered him after this manner, saying, So shall it be done to the man that killeth him.
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American Standard Version (1901) Public Domain
And the people answered him after this manner, saying, So shall it be done to the man that killeth him.
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Revised Version (1885) Public Domain
And the people answered him after this manner, saying, So shall it be done to the man that killeth him.
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Geneva Bible (1599) Public Domain
And the people answered him after this maner, saying, Thus shall it be done to the man that killeth him.
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Douay-Rheims (1899) Public Domain
And the people answered him the same words saying: These things shall be given to the man that shall slay him.
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Young's Literal Translation Public Domain
And the people speak to him according to this word, saying, `Thus it is done to the man who smiteth him.'
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Literal Standard Version CC BY-SA 4.0
And the people speak to him according to this word, saying, “Thus it is done to the man who strikes him.”
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Unlocked Literal Bible CC BY-SA 4.0
Then the people repeated what they had been saying and told him, “So it will be done for the man who kills him.”
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unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
And the people spoke to him like this word, saying, “Thus it will be done for the man who strikes him.”
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Darby Bible Public Domain
And the people told him after this manner, saying, So shall it be done to the man that smites him.
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World Messianic Bible Public Domain
The people answered him in this way, saying, “So shall it be done to the man who kills him.”
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Webster's Bible Public Domain
And the people answered him after this manner, saying, So shall it be done to the man that killeth him.
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Free Bible Version CC BY-SA 4.0
The soldiers repeated what they had said, telling him, “This is what the man who kills him will receive.”
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Bible in Basic English Public Domain
And the people gave him this answer, So it will be done to the man who overcomes him.
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JPS Tanakh (1917) Public Domain
And the people answered him after this manner, saying: 'So shall it be done to the man that killeth him.'
Literal Standard Version (2020), Covenant Press — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). Unlocked Literal Bible (unfoldingWord) — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult). Free Bible Version, Dr. Jonathan Gallagher — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org).
Word by word
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יַכֶּֽנּוּ
nâkâh
H5221
“to strike · him”
Verb, Hiphil, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular + Suffix, Personal, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular
- Appears 502× in the Hebrew Bible
- First appears at Genesis 4:15
- Part of Speech
- Verb
- Stem
- Hiphil
- Form
- Imperfect
- Person
- 3rd Person
- Gender
- Masculine
- Number
- Singular
Full BDB Definition
to strike, smite, hit, beat, slay, kill
- (Niphal) to be stricken or smitten
- (Pual) to be stricken or smitten
- (Hiphil)
- to smite, strike, beat, scourge, clap, applaud, give a thrust
- to smite, kill, slay (man or beast)
- to smite, attack, attack and destroy, conquer, subjugate, ravage
- to smite, chastise, send judgment upon, punish, destroy
- (Hophal) to be smitten
- to receive a blow
- to be wounded
- to be beaten
- to be (fatally) smitten, be killed, be slain
- to be attacked and captured
- to be smitten (with disease)
- to be blighted (of plants)
- וַיֹּ֤אמֶר ʼâmar H559 “and · to say” Conjunction + Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular
- הָעָ֔ם ʻam H5971 “the · people” Particle, Definite Article + Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute
- כַּדָּבָ֥ר dâbâr H1697 “like/as the · word” Preposition, Determined + Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute
- הַזֶּ֖ה zeh H2088 “the · this” Particle, Definite Article + Pronoun, Demonstrative, Masculine, Singular
- לֵאמֹ֑ר ʼâmar H559 “to say” Preposition + Verb, Qal, Infinitive Construct
- כֹּ֣ה kôh H3541 “thus” Adverb
- יֵעָשֶׂ֔ה ʻâsâh H6213 “to do” Verb, Niphal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular
- לָאִ֖ישׁ ʼîysh H376 “to/for the · man” Preposition, Determined + Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute
- אֲשֶׁ֥ר ʼăsher H834 “which” Particle, Relative
- יַכֶּֽנּוּ nâkâh H5221 “to strike · him” Verb, Hiphil, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular + Suffix, Personal, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular
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 →
- 11
- words
- 9
- distinct lemmas
- Historical
- section
Grammatical profile
- 4 verbs
- 3 nouns
- 1 pronoun
- 1 preposition
- 1 adverb
- 1 particle
Verb forms
- וַיֹּ֤אמֶר Qal · Sequential Imperfect
- לֵאמֹ֑ר Qal · Infinitive Construct
- יֵעָשֶׂ֔ה Niphal · Imperfect
- יַכֶּֽנּוּ Hiphil · Imperfect
Repetition
A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:
- וַיֹּ֤אמֶר to say H559 ×2
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 19 words from the Hebrew and 23 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.
Cross-references
1Topical passages linked to 1 Samuel 17:27 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.
- 1 Samuel 17:25 The men of Israel said, Have you seen this man who is come up? surely to defy Israel is he come up: and it shall be, that the man who kills him, the king will enrich him with great riches, and will give him his daughter, and make his father's house free in Israel.
Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).
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.
καί γιγνώσκω πᾶς ὁ ἐκκλησία οὗτος ὅτι οὐ ἐν ῥομφαία καί δόρυ σώζω κύριος ὅτι ὁ κύριος ὁ πόλεμος καί παραδίδωμι κύριος σύ εἰς χείρ ἐγώ
And the people spoke to him according to this Word, saying Thus shall it be done to the man Who shall strike him.
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.
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Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)
וַאֲמַר לֵיהּ עַמָא כְּפִתְגָמָא הָדֵין לְמֵימַר כְּדֵין יִתְעֲבֵיד לְגַבְרָא דְיִקְטְלִינֵיהּ:
(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.
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 11 words (9 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is nâkâh (“to strike”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Discussion questions
- What does “to strike” (nâkâh) contribute to the verse as a whole?
- How does 1 Samuel 17:25, which shares this passage’s theme, read alongside this verse?
- What does the repetition of “to say” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
- 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?
- «וַיֹּ֤אמֶר» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
- Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and John Gill's Exposition read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?
Things to notice
- These translations choose different wording for 13 words in this verse.
- “to say” occurs 2× in this single verse.
- 9 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 11 words in this verse.
Commentary
Notes on 1 Samuel 17:27 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
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
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.