2 Samuel 22:14

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Yahweh thundered from heaven, The Most High uttered his voice.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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Word by word

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יַרְעֵ֥ם

râʻam

H7481

“to thunder”

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

Appears 13× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at 1 Samuel 1:6

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 2189

to thunder - (Qal) - to make the sound of thunder, thunder - to rage - (Hiphil) - to thunder, cause thunder - to tremble, cause to tremble (by extension)

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 →

7: words
7: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is יַרְעֵ֥ם to thunder H7481 — appearing just 13 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

יַרְעֵ֥ם to thunder H7481 occurs in 13 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
3 nouns
1 adjective
1 preposition

Verb forms

יַרְעֵ֥ם Hiphil · Imperfect
יִתֵּ֥ן Qal · Imperfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 10 words from the Hebrew and 13 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.

In the original languages it is 7 Hebrew tokens and 10 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.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to 2 Samuel 22:14 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

1 Samuel 2:10 Those who strive with Yahweh shall be broken to pieces; Against them will he thunder in the sky: Yahweh will judge the ends of the earth; He will give strength to his king, Exalt the horn of his anointed.
Job 37:2–5 Hear, oh, hear the noise of his voice, The sound that goes out of his mouth.
Psalms 29:3–9 Yahweh's voice is on the waters. The God of glory thunders, even Yahweh on many waters.
Exodus 19:6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.' These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel."
Judges 5:20 From the sky the stars fought, From their courses they fought against Sisera.
1 Samuel 7:10 As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel; but Yahweh thundered with a great thunder on that day on the Philistines, and confused them; and they were struck down before Israel.
1 Samuel 12:17–18 Isn't it wheat harvest today? I will call to Yahweh, that he may send thunder and rain; and you shall know and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the sight of Yahweh, in asking you a king.
Job 40:9 Or have you an arm like God? Can you thunder with a voice like him?

Psalms 77:16–19 The waters saw you, God. The waters saw you, and they writhed. The depths also convulsed.
Isaiah 30:30 Yahweh will cause his glorious voice to be heard, and will show the lighting down of his arm, with the indignation of [his] anger, and the flame of a devouring fire, with a blast, and tempest, and hailstones.
Ezekiel 10:5 The sound of the wings of the cherubim was heard even to the outer court, as the voice of God Almighty when he speaks.
Revelation 11:19 God's temple that is in heaven was opened, and the ark of the Lord's covenant was seen in his temple. Lightnings, sounds, thunders, an earthquake, and great hail followed.

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 2 Samuel 22:14 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

יַרְעֵ֥ם מִן שָׁמַ֖יִם יְהוָ֑ה וְעֶלְי֖וֹן יִתֵּ֥ן קוֹלֽוֹ

Yahweh thundered from heaven, The Most High uttered his voice.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 2 Samuel 22:14 Septuagint · lemma form

βροντάω ἐκ οὐρανός κύριος καί ὁ ὕψιστος δίδωμι φωνή αὐτός

The Lord thundered out of heaven, and the Most High uttered his voice.

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)

אַכְלֵי מִן שְׁמַיָא יְיָ וְעִלָאָה אֲרִים מֵימְרֵיהּ:

(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 2 Samuel 22:14 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 →

Tyndale Open Study Notes

Tyndale Open Resources

22:14 The Lord thundered from heaven: Cp. 1 Sam 2:10.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(14) From heaven.—Psalms 18, “in the heavens,” a difference found in the original; the two are otherwise alike in the Hebrew, except that the psalm adds the words, “hail stones and coals of fire.”

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

14. the most High] The name of God as the Supreme Ruler of the Universe. Cp. Gen_14:18-22; Deu_32:8.

uttered his voice] Thunder is the voice of God. See Job_37:2-5. The repetition of “hailstones and coals of fire” in Psa_18:13 is probably due to an error of transcription.

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

Therefore the Lord hath recompensed me according to my righteousness; according to my cleanness in his eye sight. See Gill on Psa 18:24.

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2 Samuel 22:26

sa2 22:26

sa2 22:26

sa2 22:26With the merciful thou wilt show thyself merciful, and with the upright man thou wilt show thyself upright. See Gill on Psa 18:25.

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

Shall. Hebrew as well in the past tense. "The Lord thundered," &c. (Haydock)

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).

The Pulpit Commentary

Vers. 14-16.

Jehovah thundered from heaven, And the Most High uttered his voice. And he sent forth arrows, and scattered them the evil doers; Lightning, and terrified them.

And the sea beds became visible, The foundations of the world were laid bare, At the rebuke of Jehovah, By the breath of the wind of his nostril.

Terrified. The verb signifies" to strike with sodden terror and alarm" (see Exo_14:24; Jos_10:10) It describes here the panic caused by the lightning, and by the violent throes of nature, so powerfully described in ver. 16. Laid bare. This is the meaning of the word "discovered" in the Authorized Version. When the version was made, it was equivalent to "uncovered," but has now changed its signification.

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

14 Jehovah thundered from the heavens,

And the Most High gave His voice.

15 He sent arrows, and scattered them;

Lightning, and discomfited them.

16 Then the beds of the sea became visible;

The foundations of the world were uncovered,

Through the threatening of Jehovah,

By the snorting of the breath of His nostrils.

God sent lightning as arrows upon the enemies along with violent thunder, and threw them thereby into confusion. המם, to throw into confusion, and thereby to destroy, is the standing expression for the destruction of the foe accomplished by the miraculous interposition of God (vid., Exo 14:24; Exo 23:27; Jos 10:10; Jdg 4:15; Sa1 7:10). To the thunder there were added stormy wind and earthquake, as an effect of the wrath of God, whereby the foundations of the sea and land were laid bare, i.e., whereby the depth of the abyss and of the hell in the interior of the earth, into which the person to be rescued had fallen, were disclosed.

(Note: In Sa2 22:13-16 the text of the Psalms deviates greatly and in many instances from that before us. In v. 13 we find אשׁ וגחלי בּרד עברוּ עביו instead of אשׁ גּחלי בּערוּ; and after v. 14 אשׁ וגחלי בּרד is repeated in the psalm. In v. 15 we have רב וּברקים for בּרק, and in v. 16 מים אפיקי for ים אפיקי. The other deviations are inconsiderable. So far as the repetition of אשׁ וגחלי בּרד at the end of v. 14 is concerned, it is not only superfluous, but unsuitable, because the lightning following the thunder is described in v. 15, and the words repeated are probably nothing more than a gloss that has crept by an oversight into the text. The מים אפיקי in v. 16 is an obvious softening down of the ים אפיקי of the text before us. In the other deviations, however, the text of the Psalms is evidently the more original of the two; the abridgment of the second clause of v. 13 is evidently a simplification of the figurative description in the psalm, and רב בּרקים in the 15th verse of the psalm is more poetical and a stronger expression than the mere בּרק of our text.)

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.)

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.

2 Samuel, in the Historical, opens this verse with 7 words (7 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is râʻam (“to thunder”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word râʻam carries the sense “to thunder.” How does it shape the verse?
1 Samuel 1:6 shares the word «to thunder» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
The verb «יַרְעֵ֥ם» is Hiphil Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Tyndale Open Study Notes and Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 7 Hebrew ↔ 10 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 4 words in this verse.
7 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 7 words in this verse.