What Does Judges 1:17 Mean?
And Judah went with Simeon his brother, and they struck down the Canaanites who settled in Zephath, and devoted it to destruction. And the name of the city was called Hormah, the devoted.
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 Judah went with Simeon his brother, and they slew the Canaanites that inhabited Zephath, and utterly destroyed it. And the name of the city was called Hormah.THE KEY
The conquest is written into the city’s name: Hormah is Zephath remembered as a place devoted to destruction.
THE MEANING
The verse shows Judah and Simeon acting together as they kill the Canaanite inhabitants of Zephath and put the city under the ban of destruction. The name Hormah carries that violence forward as the city’s identifying memory. The text keeps the violence visible in both the deed and the name.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The place-name is a neutral label, separate from the violence done there; Hormah carries that destruction in its very name.
THE ROOT
וַיַּחֲרִימוּ
vayyaḥărîmû
GROWS FROM
ח־ר־ם
ḥ-r-m
To place under a ban, devote to destruction.
“devoted it to destruction” in this verse is vayyaḥărîmû. The verb binds the killing to the language of חֵרֶם (ḥērem, the ban or a thing devoted to destruction). חָרְמָה (Ḥormāh, Hormah) carries that same root in the city’s name, so its name keeps the destruction in view.
ALSO GROWS
ḥērem: The ban; a thing devoted to destruction.
חֵרֶם
This noun names the same ban expressed by the verse’s verb, showing that the city is not merely defeated but placed under destruction.
Ḥormāh: Hormah, a place-name linked with the ban and destruction.
חָרְמָה
The city’s name preserves the fate described in the verse, binding the place to the act done there.
THE PATTERN
A place-name can preserve the event that marks the place.
And David came to Baal-perazim, and David struck them there, and said, The LORD has broken through my enemies before me, like a breach of waters. Therefore he called the name of that place Baal-perazim, lord of breaches.And it became known to all who settled in Jerusalem, so that in their own tongue that field is called Akeldama, the field of blood.THE THREAD
And the LORD heard and responded to the voice of Israel, and gave the Canaanites into their hand, and they devoted them and their cities to destruction, and the name of that place was called Hormah, the devoted place.Numbers uses the same root ח־ר־ם (ḥ-r-m, to devote to destruction) and gives the place the same name, חָרְמָה (Ḥormāh, Hormah). The echo makes the name a record of the destruction in both verses.
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