What Does Genesis 19:4 Mean?
But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, circled the house, both old and young, all the people from every end.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter:THE KEY
The Hebrew shows the city’s people turning into a ring around the house, closing in from every side.
THE MEANING
Before the visitors can lie down, the city’s men encircle the house, young and old, from every quarter. The threat is collective: the verse describes the crowd as spanning generations and the whole city.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that collective violence belongs only to a small corner of a community is undone here: the crowd spans ages and comes from every quarter.
THE ROOT
נָסַבּוּ
nā-sab-bû
GROWS FROM
סבב
s-b-b
To turn or go around; to encircle.
“circled” in this verse is nā-sab-bû. English “compassed” can sound like a static boundary, but the Hebrew carries the circling motion itself. Joined to “from every quarter,” it shows the crowd closing around the house on all sides.
ALSO GROWS
sovev: One who circles or surrounds.
סוֹבֵב
It keeps the crowd’s action in view as a movement around its target.
saviv: Around; all around.
סָבִיב
It names the space surrounding something, making clear how the house is enclosed.
THE PATTERN
Enclosure turns a crowd into a collective threat by closing around a vulnerable person or place.
Now as they were making their hearts good, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of worthlessness, circled the house, and pounded at the door, and spoke to the master of the house, the old man, saying, Bring out the man who came into your house, that we may know him.For dogs have circled me; an assembly of evildoers has surrounded me; they bore through my hands and my feet.And they climb up across the breadth of the earth and encircle the camp of the set-apart ones and the beloved city. Fire comes down from God out of heaven and devours them.THE THREAD
All nations circle me; in the nature of the LORD I cut them off.“Compassed” comes from the same Hebrew root, סבב (sabab), meaning to circle or encircle. The reply places deliverance in the LORD’s nature: the surrounding crowd is real, but it does not define the final power in the scene.
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