What Does Genesis 19:5 Mean?
And they called to Lot and said to him, Where are the men who came in to you this night? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.
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
And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.THE KEY
“Know” here names the crowd’s demand for sexual access to Lot’s guests by force.
THE MEANING
This verse exposes a crowd demanding that Lot surrender his visitors for sexual use. “Know” translates *yada*, a word for knowing or perceiving that can also name sexual relations; here the demand makes the threat unmistakable. The violence is in the demand itself.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
“That we may know them” is not a request for information or conversation; the crowd is demanding sexual access without consent.
THE ROOT
יָדַע
yada
GROWS FROM
י־ד־ע
To know, perceive, or recognize, often through encounter; in some contexts, to have sexual relations.
English “know” can sound purely informational, but *yada* also names bodily intimacy. Here the crowd’s demand makes that sexual sense explicit, leaving no room to read it as innocent curiosity.
ALSO GROWS
da’at: Knowledge or understanding.
דַּעַת
This noun shares the root and shows knowing as something grasped or perceived.
yadua: Known or recognized.
יָדוּעַ
This form shows the root’s other side: someone can be known or encountered, not merely spoken about.
THE PATTERN
Scripture uses “know” for sexual relations as well as perception, so the scene carries the word’s intended sense.
And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, the gotten one, and she said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.And he did not know her until she had brought forth her firstborn son, and he called his name Jesus.THE THREAD
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.Judges 19:22 repeats the same demand, “that we may know him”, using the same Hebrew verb, *yada*. The parallel makes the force of Genesis 19:5’s wording unmistakable: this is a threat of sexual violence, not a search for information.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us