1 Samuel 22:21

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Abiathar told David that Saul had slain Yahweh's priests.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

Septuagint runs longer here — compare

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אֶבְיָתָ֖ר

ʼEbyâthâr

H54

“Abiathar”

Noun, Proper

Appears 30× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at 1 Samuel 22:20

Full BDB Definition

Origin: contracted from H1 and H3498

TWOT: None

Abiathar = "my father is great" - priest, son of Ahitub (Ahimelech), faithful to David, but later rebelled with Adonijah

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 →

9: words
9: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Shared distinctive vocabulary

אֶבְיָתָ֖ר Abiathar H54 occurs in 28 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
5 nouns
1 conjunction
1 particle

Verb forms

וַיַּגֵּ֥ד Hiphil · Sequential Imperfect
הָרַ֣ג Qal · Perfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 9 words from the Hebrew and 14 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the Septuagint runs noticeably longer here. See the side-by-side →

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 9 Hebrew tokens and 13 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.

Here the Septuagint runs noticeably longer than the Hebrew — LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) 14 words vs World English Bible 9. A rough length comparison of the two English translations, not a word-level alignment — read both below.

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

Hebrew 1 Samuel 22:21 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיַּגֵּ֥ד אֶבְיָתָ֖ר לְדָוִ֑ד כִּ֚י הָרַ֣ג שָׁא֔וּל אֵ֖ת כֹּהֲנֵ֥י יְהוָֽה

Abiathar told David that Saul had slain Yahweh's priests.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 1 Samuel 22:21 Septuagint · lemma form

καί ἀποἀγγέλλω αβιαθαρ ὁ δαυίδ ὅτι θανατόω σαούλ πᾶς ὁ ἱερεύς ὁ κύριος

And Abiathar told David that Saul had slain all the priests of the Lord.

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)

וְחַוֵי אֶבְיָתָר לְדָוִד אֲרֵי קְטַל שָׁאוּל יַת כַּהֲנַיָא דַיָי:

(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 22:21 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 22:21 And Abiathar shewed David that Saul had slain the LORD’S priests.

Ver. 21. That Saul had slain.] Himself only was escaped, that God’s promise might be accomplished. {1Sa 2:33}

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 Abiathar showed David that Saul had slain the Lord's priests. Of which perhaps he had not as yet heard; though tidings of such a nature generally fly swiftly; and a sorrowful shocking account he had to give, and which was so to David.

And Abiathar showed David that Saul had slain the Lord's priests. Of which perhaps he had not as yet heard; though tidings of such a nature generally fly swiftly; and a sorrowful shocking account he had to give, and which was so to David.

1 Samuel 22:22

sa1 22:22

sa1 22:22

sa1 22:22And David said unto Abiathar, I knew it that day,.... That is, he thought in his mind at that time:

when Doeg the Edomite was there; at Nob; in the tabernacle, at the same time that David was there:

that he would surely tell Saul; that he saw David there, and what passed between him and Ahimelech; he knew he was a spiteful mischievous man; that he was a true Edomite, though a proselyte, and bore hatred and enmity in his mind against an Israelite, and especially an Israelite indeed, as David was:

I have occasioned the death of all the persons of thy father's house: or have been the cause of all the evils that befell them, and the death they were put unto, not with design, but by accident; and it grieved him that he should be any ways an accessory thereunto, though without intention.

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

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 9 words (9 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is ʼEbyâthâr (“Abiathar”). The Greek Septuagint runs longer here. A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “Abiathar” (ʼEbyâthâr) shape what this verse is saying?
How does 1 Samuel 22:20, which shares the word «Abiathar», read alongside this verse?
The Septuagint runs longer here than the Hebrew. What might account for the difference?
These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
«וַיַּגֵּ֥ד» is a Hiphil 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

This verse counts 9 Hebrew ↔ 13 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 8 words in this verse.
9 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 9 words in this verse.