Question 1

What does "Tell" mean in the King James Bible?

Accepted Answer

In the KJV, "Tell" means "count." The intimacy of counting. God told Abraham to tell the stars -- to count them one by one, personally, the way you tell the beads of a rosary. The word fused narration and enumeration: to tell was to account for something by going through it carefully. A bank teller and a storyteller both preserve half the original meaning.

Question 2

Why did the word "Tell" disappear from modern English?

Accepted Answer

Lost its primary meaning of 'count/enumerate/reckon' (from Old English tellan, cognate with German zahlen 'to pay/count'), keeping only the 'narrate/inform' sense. The word was at peak usage around 1611 and declined by ~1750 (the 'count' meaning died while 'narrate' survived).

Question 3

What modern word replaced "Tell"?

Accepted Answer

"Tell" was replaced by: "count" (though this purely numerical; tell-as-count carried the sense of accounting for, giving a reckoning); "number" (though this mathematical; tell implied the human act of carefully enumerating, one by one); "reckon" (though this closest match in weight; both tell and reckon once meant 'to account for').

What Does “Tell” Mean in the Bible?

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