The man said to Eli, I am he who came out of the army, and I fled today out of the army. He said, How went the matter, my son?
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The same verse in 3 English versions, stacked beneath the original-language interlinear above. Click any original word for its lexicon entry.
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The man said to Eli, I am he who came out of the army, and I fled today out of the army. He said, How went the matter, my son?
And the man said unto Eli, I am he that came out of the army, and I fled to day out of the army. And he said, What is there done, my son?
And the man said to Eli, “I the one coming from the array, and I myself fled from the array today.” And he said, “What was the event, my son?”
unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult).
Every available English version of this verse, each an independent rendering of the whole verse.
The man said to Eli, I am he who came out of the army, and I fled today out of the army. He said, How went the matter, my son?
“I have just come from the battle,” the man said to Eli. “I fled from there today.” “What happened, my son?” Eli asked.
“I have just come from the battle,” the man said to Eli. “I fled from there today.” “What happened, my son?” Eli asked.
And the man said unto Eli, I am he that came out of the army, and I fled to day out of the army. And he said, What is there done, my son?
And the man said unto Eli, I am he that came out of the army, and I fled to-day out of the army. And he said, How went the matter, my son?
And the man said unto Eli, I am he that came out of the army, and I fled today out of the army. And he said, How went the matter, my son?
And the man sayd vnto Eli, I came from the armie, and I fled this day out of the hoste: and he sayd, What thing is done, my sonne?
And he said to Heli: I am he that came from the battle, and have fled out of the field this day. And he said to him: What is there done, my son?
And the man saith unto Eli, `I `am' he who hath come out of the ranks, and I out of the ranks have fled to-day;' and he saith, `What hath been the matter, my son?'
And the man says to Eli, “I [am] he who has come out of the ranks, and I have fled out of the ranks today”; and he says, “What has been the matter, my son?”
The man said to Eli, “I am the one who came from the battle line. I fled from the battle today.” Eli said, “How did it go, my son?”
And the man said to Eli, “I the one coming from the array, and I myself fled from the array today.” And he said, “What was the event, my son?”
And the man said to Eli, I am he that came out of the battle, and I have fled to-day out of the battle. And he said, What has taken place, my son?
The man said to Eli, “I am he who came out of the army, and I fled today out of the army.” He said, “How did the matter go, my son?”
And the man said to Eli, I am he that came out of the army, and I fled to-day out of the army. And he said, What is there done, my son?
“I've just come from the battle,” the man said. “I ran away from it today.” “What happened, my son?” Eli asked.
And the man said to Eli, I have come from the army and have come in flight today from the fight. And he said, How did it go, my son?
And the man said unto Eli: 'I am he that came out of the army, and I fled to-day out of the army.' And he said: 'How went the matter, my son?'
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).
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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 →
Notable vocabulary
The rarest word here is הַמַּעֲרָכָ֔ה rank H4634 — appearing just 20 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.
Shared distinctive vocabulary
הַמַּעֲרָכָ֔ה rank H4634 occurs in 18 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:
Grammatical profile
Verb forms
Repetition
Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 30 words from the Hebrew and 56 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 18 Hebrew tokens and 30 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.
Topical passages linked to 1 Samuel 4:16 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.
Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).
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) 56 words vs World English Bible 30. 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.
וַיֹּ֨אמֶר הָאִ֜ישׁ אֶל עֵלִ֗י אָֽנֹכִי֙ הַבָּ֣א מִן הַמַּעֲרָכָ֔ה וַאֲנִ֕י מִן הַמַּעֲרָכָ֖ה נַ֣סְתִּי הַיּ֑וֹם וַיֹּ֛אמֶר מֶֽה הָיָ֥ה הַדָּבָ֖ר בְּנִֽי
The man said to Eli, I am he who came out of the army, and I fled today out of the army. He said, How went the matter, my son?
World English Bible · Public Domain
καί ὁ ἀνήρ σπεύδω προςἔρχομαι πρός ηλι καί εἶπον αὐτός ἐγώ εἰμί ὁ ἥκω ἐκ ὁ παρεμβολή καΐἐγώ φεύγω ἐκ ὁ παράταξις σήμερον καί εἶπον τίς ὁ γίγνομαι ῥῆμα τέκνον
And Heli said to them that stood round about him, What is the voice of this sound? And the man hasted and advanced to Heli, and said to him, I am he that is come out of the camp, and I have fled from the battle today: and Heli said, What is the even, my son?
LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain
On this verse, Keil & Delitzsch discusses the Septuagint’s reading. Read the note in Commentary ↓
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 →
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.
וַאֲמַר גַבְרָא לְעֵלִי אֲנָא אֲתֵית מִן סִדְרָא וַאֲנָא מִן סִדְרָא דִקְרָבָא אַפָּכִית יוֹמָא דֵין וַאֲמַר מֶה הֲוָה פִּתְגָמָא בְּרִי:
(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.
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 18 words (15 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is maʻărâkâh (“rank”). The Greek Septuagint runs longer here. A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Commentary
Notes on 1 Samuel 4:16 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.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne
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
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Pulpit Commentary
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Keil & Delitzsch
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch
Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)
unfoldingWord translationNotes
Door43 World Missions Community
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.