1 Samuel 8:15

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

He will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Download a study sheet

One document with this verse’s original text, its word-by-word gloss line, the meaning frame, cross-references with their text, attributed commentary, and full source and license credits — printable, and it pastes into notes with its structure intact.

This verse Autodidact and up

Study sheet (.html) Plain text (.txt)

A passage Seminary Student

Up to 50 verses in one chapter. A passage sheet keeps up to 6 commentary sources and 12 cross-references per verse, in the order this page ranks them, and says so on the sheet whenever that leaves anything out. Ask for a single verse and you get the Autodidact verse sheet above.

Everything on this page stays free to read, with no account — the sheet is a download of what is already on screen, not access to it.

Want to remove ads? Support Godless Engineer

Word by word

More ways to search: Search by grammar → Find every occurrence → Compare this word →

Practice this passage: Drill this verse → Learn its vocabulary →

יַעְשֹׂ֑ר

ʻâsar

H6237

“to tithe”

Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular

Appears 9× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 28:22

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root (ident. with H6238 )

TWOT: 1711c

to tithe, take the tenth part of, give a tithe, take a tithe - (Qal) to tithe - (Piel) to give a tithe - (Hiphil) to take a tithe

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 →

6: words
6: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is יַעְשֹׂ֑ר to tithe H6237 — appearing just 9 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

יַעְשֹׂ֑ר to tithe H6237 occurs in 7 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
4 nouns

Verb forms

יַעְשֹׂ֑ר Qal · Imperfect
וְנָתַ֥ן Qal · Sequential Perfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 21 words from the Hebrew and 22 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

Topical passages linked to 1 Samuel 8:15 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Genesis 37:36 The Midianites sold him into Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's, the captain of the guard.
Isaiah 39:7 Of your sons who shall issue from you, whom you shall father, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.
Daniel 1:3 The king spoke to Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring in [certain] of the children of Israel, even of the seed royal and of the nobles;
Daniel 1:7–10 The prince of the eunuchs gave names to them: to Daniel he gave [the name of] Belteshazzar; and to Hananiah, [of] Shadrach; and to Mishael, [of] Meshach; and to Azariah, [of] Abednego.
Daniel 1:18 At the end of the days which the king had appointed for bringing them in, the prince of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar.

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.

Hebrew 1 Samuel 8:15 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וְזַרְעֵיכֶ֥ם וְכַרְמֵיכֶ֖ם יַעְשֹׂ֑ר וְנָתַ֥ן לְסָרִיסָ֖יו וְלַעֲבָדָֽיו

He will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 1 Samuel 8:15 Septuagint · lemma form

καί ὁ σπέρμα σύ καί ὁ ἀμπελών σύ ἀποδεκατόω καί δίδωμι ὁ εὐνοῦχος αὐτός καί ὁ δοῦλος αὐτός

And he will take the tithe of your seeds and your vineyards, and give it to his eunuchs, and to his servants.

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)

וְזַרְעֵיכוֹן וְכַרְמֵיכוֹן יִסַב חַד מִן עַסְרָא וִיהַב לְרַבְרְבוֹהִי וּלְעַבְדוֹהִי:

(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 8:15 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 8:15 And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants.

Ver. 15. And he will take the tenth of your seed.] Violently, and not by order of law; pilling and polling you unreasonably, though he receive of his subjects no less sums of curses than of coin, as our King John did, gathering money, the sinews of war, but losing love, the cement of peace. {a}

{a} Speed.

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.

Tyndale Open Study Notes

Tyndale Open Resources

8:15 A tenth of the harvest was already required as a sacred donation to support God’s Temple and servants (Deut 12:6, 17-18; 14:22-29; 26:12-15). The king would demand an additional tenth, a burdensome amount given the uncertainties of agriculture.

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

Or, chief officers.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

15. officers] Or, chamberlains.

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 he will take the tenth of your seed,.... When grown up and ripe, as their wheat and barley:

and of your vineyards; the tenth of the grapes they should produce:

and give to his officers, and to his servants; for the support and maintenance of them; and to pay this, besides the tithes of the priests and Levites, would make it very burdensome to them; and this was no other than what kings of other nations usually had, the like to whom they were desirous of having, and therefore must expect that they would insist upon the privileges and revenues that others had. In Babylon, as Aristotle (g) relates, there was an ancient law which required the tenth of whatever was imported for the public revenue, which was revived in the times of Alexander by Antimenes the Rhodian. In Arabia Felix was an island abounding with frankincense and myrrh, and various spices, the tenth of the fruits of which the king always had, as Diodorus Siculus (h) reports, as in the Apocrypha:"And as for other things that belong unto us, of the tithes and customs pertaining unto us, as also the saltpits, and the crown taxes, which are due unto us, we discharge them of them all for their relief.'' (1 Maccabees 11:35)

(g) Oeconomic. l. 2. p. 283. (h) Bibliothec. l. 5. p. 317.

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

Tenth. God had already claimed one tithe, which he had abandoned to his sacred ministers. We do not read that the kings of the Hebrews ever claimed (Calmet) a second tithe precisely, (Haydock) though they might have done it b the example of other kings, Leviticus xxvii. 30. Joseph had asserted the fifth part of the revenues of Egypt for its monarchs, Genesis xlvii. 26. --- Eunuchs. Hebrew saris, denotes an officer of the court. It was not lawful for the Israelites to make any eunuchs, but they might employ foreigners.

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

He will take the tenth: besides the several tenths which God hath reserved for his service and servants, he will, when he pleaseth, impose another tenth upon you.

To his officers, Heb. to his eunuchs; which may be properly understood, and may imply a further injury, that he should, against the command of God, make some of his people eunuchs, and take those into his court and favour which God would have cast out of the congregation.

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 tenth. i.e. the king will cost you as much as all the ordinances of religion. Still national security would be cheaply purchased at this, or even a greater cost, if the money were well spent; but Samuel says that the king would lavish it not on his officers, but on his eunuchs, those miserable creatures, so cruelly wronged, and generally so hateful, who ministered to the pleasures of Oriental kings.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Wesley's Explanatory Notes

The tenth - Besides the several tenths which God hath reserved for his service, he will, when he pleaseth, impose another tenth upon you. Officers - Hebrew. To his eunuchs, which may imply a farther injury, that he should against the command of God, make some of his people eunuchs; and take those into his court and favour, which God would have cast out of the congregation.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

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 6 words (6 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is ʻâsar (“to tithe”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “to tithe” (ʻâsar) contribute to the verse as a whole?
Genesis 28:22 shares the word «to tithe» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
The verb «יַעְשֹׂ֑ר» is Qal Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Tyndale Open Study Notes read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

These translations choose different wording for 9 words in this verse.
6 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 6 words in this verse.