David said to him, How went the matter? Please tell me. He answered, The people are fled from the battle, and many of the people also are fallen and dead; and Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also.
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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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David said to him, How went the matter? Please tell me. He answered, The people are fled from the battle, and many of the people also are fallen and dead; and Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also.
And David said unto him, How went the matter? I pray thee, tell me. And he answered, That the people are fled from the battle, and many of the people also are fallen and dead; and Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also.
And David said to him, “How was the matter? Declare to me, please.” And he said that the people had fled from the battle, and also many from the people had fallen and died, and also Saul and Jonathan his son had died.
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.
David said to him, How went the matter? Please tell me. He answered, The people are fled from the battle, and many of the people also are fallen and dead; and Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also.
“What was the outcome?” David asked. “Please tell me.” “The troops fled from the battle,” he replied. “Many of them fell and died. And Saul and his son Jonathan are also dead.”
“What was the outcome?” David asked. “Please tell me.” “The troops fled from the battle,” he replied. “Many of them fell and died. And Saul and his son Jonathan are also dead.”
And David said unto him, How went the matter? I pray thee, tell me. And he answered, That the people are fled from the battle, and many of the people also are fallen and dead; and Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also.
And David said unto him, How went the matter? I pray thee, tell me. And he answered, The people are fled from the battle, and many of the people also are fallen and dead; and Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also.
And David said unto him, How went the matter? I pray thee, tell me. And he answered, The people are fled from the battle, and many of the people also are fallen and dead; and Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also.
And Dauid saide vnto him, What is done? I pray thee, tell me. Then he said, that the people is fled from the battel, and many of the people are ouerthrowen, and dead, and also Saul and Ionathan his sonne are dead.
And David said unto him: What is the matter that is come to pass? tell me. He said: The people are fled from the battle, and many of the people are fallen and dead: moreover Saul and Jonathan his son are slain.
And David saith unto him, `What hath been the matter? declare, I pray thee, to me.' And he saith, that `The people hath fled from the battle, and also a multitude hath fallen of the people, and they die; and also Saul and Jonathan his son have died.'
And David says to him, “What has been the matter? Please declare [it] to me.” And he says, “That the people have fled from the battle, and also a multitude of the people have fallen, and they die; and also Saul and his son Jonathan have died.”
David said to him, “Please tell me how things went.” He answered, “The people fled from the battle. Many have fallen and many are dead. Saul and Jonathan his son are also dead.”
And David said to him, “How was the matter? Declare to me, please.” And he said that the people had fled from the battle, and also many from the people had fallen and died, and also Saul and Jonathan his son had died.
And David said to him, What has taken place? I pray thee, tell me. And he said that the people had fled from the battle, and many of the people also had fallen and died, and that Saul and Jonathan his son were dead also.
David said to him, “How did it go? Please tell me.” He answered, “The people have fled from the battle, and many of the people also have fallen and are dead. Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also.”
And David said to him, How went the matter? I pray thee, tell me. And he answered, That the people have fled from the battle, and many of the people also have fallen, and are dead; and Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also.
“Tell me what happened,” David asked. “The army ran away from the battle,” the man replied. “Many of them died, and Saul and his son Jonathan also died.”
And David said to him, How did things go? Give me the news. And in answer he said, The people have gone in flight from the fight, and a great number of them are dead; and Saul and his son Jonathan are dead.
And David said unto him: 'How went the matter? I pray thee, tell me.' And he answered: 'The people are fled from the battle, and many of the people also are fallen and dead; and Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also.'
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 →
Grammatical profile
Verb forms
Repetition
Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 39 words from the Hebrew and 39 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the same length.
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 26 Hebrew tokens and 37 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 2 Samuel 1:4 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.
These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.
וַיֹּ֨אמֶר אֵלָ֥יו דָּוִ֛ד מֶה הָיָ֥ה הַדָּבָ֖ר הַגֶּד נָ֣א לִ֑י וַ֠יֹּאמֶר אֲשֶׁר נָ֨ס הָעָ֜ם מִן הַמִּלְחָמָ֗ה וְגַם הַרְבֵּ֞ה נָפַ֤ל מִן הָעָם֙ וַיָּמֻ֔תוּ וְגַ֗ם שָׁא֛וּל וִיהוֹנָתָ֥ן בְּנ֖וֹ מֵֽתוּ
David said to him, How went the matter? Please tell me. He answered, The people are fled from the battle, and many of the people also are fallen and dead; and Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also.
World English Bible · Public Domain
καί εἶπον αὐτός δαυίδ τίς ὁ λόγος οὗτος ἀποἀγγέλλω ἐγώ καί εἶπον ὅτι φεύγω ὁ λαός ἐκ ὁ πόλεμος καί πίπτω πολύς ἐκ ὁ λαός καί ἀποθνήσκω καί ἀποθνήσκω καί σαούλ καί ιωναθαν ὁ υἱός αὐτός ἀποθνήσκω
And David said to him, What is the matter? tell me. And he said, The people fled out of the battle, and many of the people have fallen and are dead, and Saul and Jonathan his son are dead.
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 →
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 לֵיהּ דָוִד מֶה הֲוָה פִתְגָמָא חַוִי כְעַן לִי וַאֲמַר דְאַפִּיךְ עַמָא מִן קְרָבָא וְאַף סַגִי נְפַל מִן עַמָא וְאִתְקְטָלוּ וְאַף שָׁאוּל וִיהוֹנָתָן בְּרֵיהּ מִיתוּ:
(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.
2 Samuel, in the Historical, opens this verse with 26 words (20 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Yᵉhôwnâthân (“Jonathan”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Commentary
Notes on 2 Samuel 1:4 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.
Tyndale Open Study Notes
Tyndale Open Resources
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
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.
Whedon's Commentary on the Bible
Daniel D. Whedon
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.