Bible Strands
1 Samuel 22:7
Then Saul said to his servants, “Listen, men of Benjamin! Is the son of Jesse giving all of you fields and vineyards and making you commanders of thousands or hundreds?
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Saul addresses his own servants, specifically the men of Benjamin standing around him, immediately after learning that David and his followers had been discovered (1 Samuel 22:6).
The words — `שִׁמְעוּ (shim‘u)` = listen and `נָא (na)` = please frame his sarcastic address to the tribe. `בְּנֵי (benei)` = sons of identifies the specific group he suspects of being bribed.
The thread — The accusation echoes the earlier warning that a king will take fields and vineyards to give to his servants (1 Samuel 8:14). It also anticipates the later tribal fracture over land and authority when Israel refuses the king’s demands (1 Kings 12:16).
Why it lands — The text states Saul’s sarcastic claim that David is buying loyalty with land and military commissions. It asks the reader to observe how political paranoia reduces relationships to transactions and how material promises fracture institutional loyalty.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Then Saul said unto his servants that stood about him, Hear now, ye Benjamites; will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards, and make you all captains of thousands, and captains of hundreds;
Cross-references
- 1 Samuel 8:14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his servants.
- 1 Kings 12:16 When all Israel saw that the king had refused to listen to them, they answered the king: “What portion do we have in David, and what inheritance in the son of Jesse? To your tents, O Israel! Look now to your own house, O David!” So the Israelites went home,
- 1 Samuel 8:11 He said, “This will be the manner of the king who will reign over you: He will take your sons and appoint them to serve his own chariots and horses, and to run in front of his chariots.
- 1 Samuel 18:14 and he continued to prosper in all his ways, because the LORD was with him.
- 1 Samuel 20:27 But on the day after the New Moon, the second day, David’s place was still empty, and Saul asked his son Jonathan, “Why hasn’t the son of Jesse come to the meal either yesterday or today?”
- 1 Samuel 20:30 Then Saul’s anger burned against Jonathan, and he said to him, “You son of a perverse and rebellious woman! Do I not know that you have chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of the mother who bore you?
- 1 Samuel 22:9 But Doeg the Edomite, who had stationed himself with Saul’s servants, answered: “I saw the son of Jesse come to Ahimelech son of Ahitub at Nob.
- 1 Samuel 22:13 And Saul asked him, “Why have you and the son of Jesse conspired against me? You gave him bread and a sword and inquired of God for him so that he could rise up against me to lie in wait, as he is doing today.”
- 1 Samuel 25:10 But Nabal asked them, “Who is David? Who is this son of Jesse? Many servants these days are breaking away from their masters.
- 2 Samuel 20:1 Now a worthless man named Sheba son of Bichri, a Benjamite, happened to be there, and he blew the ram’s horn and shouted: “We have no share in David, no inheritance in Jesse’s son. Every man to his tent, O Israel!”