Verse Lens · Concise explanation
1 Samuel 9:11 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 11. 11And as they went up the hill to the city, they found young maidens going out to draw water, and said unto them, Is the seer here?
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
Places young women drawing water as Saul's local guides.
Read It With
- 1 Samuel 9:11–9:14
Follow the scene from 1 Samuel 9:11–9:14, not verse 9:11 alone. This line places young women drawing water as Saul's local guides, and the surrounding movement is Young women drawing water give Saul detailed guidance about Samuel, the high-place sacrifice, and the public meal, and Saul meets Samuel as they said.
Why This Verse Appears Here
Here the narrator places young women drawing water as Saul's local guides, moving 1 Samuel 9:11–9:14 through the sequence summarized this way: Young women drawing water give Saul detailed guidance about Samuel, the high-place sacrifice, and the public meal, and Saul meets Samuel as they said.
What Remains True
Places young women drawing water as Saul's local guides. Within 1 Samuel 9:11–9:14, this contribution supports the unit's enduring claim: A responsible reader preserves both the unit's stated movement and its ethical limit. Their guidance does not reduce the women to scenery, romanticize gendered labor, or imply that ordinary local knowledge is lesser than elite speech.
How It Can Shape Life
- Places young women drawing water as Saul's local guides. 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. Their guidance does not reduce the women to scenery, romanticize gendered labor, or imply that ordinary local knowledge is lesser than elite speech.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read 1 Samuel 9:11–9:14 — Women at the well direct Saul to SamuelSources 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 9:11–9:14, 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 9:11–9:14; 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 9:11–9:14
Open source ↗