Bible Strands
1 Samuel 30:4
So David and the troops with him lifted up their voices and wept until they had no strength left to weep.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — David and his men arrive at Ziklag to find the city burned and their wives, sons, and daughters taken captive.
The words — The Hebrew verbs וַיִּשָּׂא (va-yissa', "he lifted up") and וַיִּבְכּוּ (va-yivku, "they wept") describe the physical escalation of grief into vocal lamentation.
The thread — This collective mourning mirrors the people weeping aloud in 1 Samuel 11:4 and the congregation lifting voices to cry out in Numbers 14:1.
Why it lands — The text records physical exhaustion from grief without offering immediate comfort, requiring the reader to sit with the raw reality of loss before any resolution.
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 David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept, until they had no more power to weep.
Cross-references
- 1 Samuel 11:4 When the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul and relayed these words in the hearing of the people, they all wept aloud.
- Genesis 37:33 His father recognized it and said, “It is my son’s robe! A vicious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces!”
- Numbers 14:1 Then the whole congregation lifted up their voices and cried out, and that night the people wept.
- Numbers 14:39 And when Moses relayed these words to all the Israelites, the people mourned bitterly.
- Judges 2:4 When the angel of the LORD had spoken these words to all the Israelites, the people lifted up their voices and wept.
- Judges 21:2 So the people came to Bethel and sat there before God until evening, lifting up their voices and weeping bitterly.
- 1 Samuel 4:13 When he arrived, there was Eli, sitting on his chair beside the road and watching, because his heart trembled for the ark of God. When the man entered the city to give a report, the whole city cried out.
- Ezra 10:1 While Ezra prayed and made this confession, weeping and falling facedown before the house of God, a very large assembly of Israelites—men, women, and children—gathered around him, and the people wept bitterly as well.