1 Samuel 17:56

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

The king said, "Inquire whose son the young man is!"

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

1 first appearance in the Hebrew Bible

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הָעָֽלֶם

ʻelem

H5958

“the · young man”

Particle, Definite Article + Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 2× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears here

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H5956

TWOT: 1630a

young man

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 →

8: words
8: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is הָעָֽלֶם young man H5958 — appearing just 2 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

First appearance in Scripture

This word makes its first canonical appearance in the Hebrew Bible here:

הָעָֽלֶם young man H5958

Shared distinctive vocabulary

הָעָֽלֶם young man H5958 occurs in 2 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

1 Samuel 20:22

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
3 nouns
2 pronouns
1 particle

Verb forms

וַיֹּ֖אמֶר Qal · Sequential Imperfect
שְׁאַ֣ל Qal · Imperative

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 10 words from the Hebrew and 12 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.

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 17:56 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיֹּ֖אמֶר הַמֶּ֑לֶךְ שְׁאַ֣ל אַתָּ֔ה בֶּן מִי זֶ֖ה הָעָֽלֶם

The king said, "Inquire whose son the young man is!"

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 1 Samuel 17:56 Septuagint · lemma form

And the king said, Do you ask whose son this youth is.

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 מַלְכָּא שְׁאַל אַתְּ בַּר מַן דֵין עוּלֵימָא:

(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 17:56 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 17:56 And the king said, Enquire thou whose son the stripling [is].

Ver. 56. Enquire thou.] It was fit that such a stripling should be noted and noticed, as durst grapple with such a daring giant.

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.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

56. the stripling] This word is the diminutive of strip, and like slip, scion, &c. means a youth, as it were a strip from the parent stem. The Heb. word, which is found again only in 1Sa_20:22, signifies “a full grown youth.”

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And the king said, inquire thou whose son the stripling is. Still the question is the same, being very desirous of knowing of what family he was, for the reason before given; see Gill on Sa1 17:55.

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1 Samuel 17:57

sa1 17:57

sa1 17:57

sa1 17:57And as David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine,.... Carrying his head in triumph, and no doubt accompanied with the acclamations of the people:

Abner took him and brought him before Saul, with the head of the Philistine in his hand; to give an answer to the king's question concerning him, who could best do it himself; and that Saul might have the opportunity of rewarding him, according to his merit, for so great a piece of service he had done for Israel, of which the head in his hand was a sufficient proof.

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

Scofield Reference Notes

C. I. Scofield

son

Cf. (See Scofield "1Sa 16:21").

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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 8 words (8 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is ʻelem (“young man”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word ʻelem carries the sense “young man.” How does it shape the verse?
This is the first place “young man” appears in Scripture (first appears here). What does its debut here establish?
How does 1 Samuel 20:22, which shares the word «young man», read alongside this verse?
These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
«וַיֹּ֖אמֶר» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

1 word makes its first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
These translations choose different wording for 9 words in this verse.
8 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 8 words in this verse.