Verse Lens · Concise explanation
1 Samuel 4:13 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 13. 13And when he came, lo, Eli sat upon a seat by the wayside watching: for his heart trembled for the ark of God. And when the man came into the city, and told it, all the city cried out.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
Places trembling Eli waiting for ark news as the whole city cries out.
Read It With
- 1 Samuel 4:12–4:18
Verse 4:13 belongs to “The battlefield report reaches Eli.” It places trembling Eli waiting for ark news as the whole city cries out; detached from the full unit, that contribution can be mistaken for the unit's whole claim.
Why This Verse Appears Here
1 Samuel 4:13 belongs here because it places trembling Eli waiting for ark news as the whole city cries out. Without that detail, the transition traced in 1 Samuel 4:12–4:18 would lose a stated action, speech, or consequence.
What Remains True
Places trembling Eli waiting for ark news as the whole city cries out. Within 1 Samuel 4:12–4:18, this contribution supports the unit's enduring claim: The durable responsibility is to protect people from detached uses of this scene while retaining its warranted claim: A Benjaminite messenger reaches Shiloh in mourning, reports Israel's flight, mass death, the deaths of Eli's sons, and the ark's capture; Eli falls and dies when he hears of the ark.
How It Can Shape Life
- Places trembling Eli waiting for ark news as the whole city cries out. The proportionate response is therefore the one traced from the complete unit: Listen to people whose local knowledge or warning is easy to overlook, verify what they report, and give their contribution appropriate weight without romanticizing the labor or risk that made the knowledge possible. Eli's death does not make disability, age, or body size a moral verdict, and the messenger's report must not reduce thousands of dead people to scenery.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read 1 Samuel 4:12–4:18 — The battlefield report reaches EliSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? strong
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV words, verse order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete unit coverage.
Exact location: 1 Samuel 4:12–4:18, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: 1 Samuel
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology, with the two KJV-Hebrew versification shifts stated rather than silently offset.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/1Sam.xml, OSIS 4:12–4:18; KJV 20:42 spans Hebrew 20:42–21:1, KJV 21:1–15 maps to Hebrew 21:2–16, KJV 23:29 maps to Hebrew 24:1, and KJV 24:1–22 maps to Hebrew 24:2–23
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible First Edition Notes: 1 Samuel
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Only the translator notes actually printed for these verses, used for lexical, grammatical, textual, historical, and older-English controls.
Exact location: NET Bible First Edition Notes, 1 Samuel PDF, printed pp. 504–543, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 4:12–4:18
Open source ↗