What Does Judges 1:26 Mean?
And the man went into the land of the Hittites, and built a city, and called its name Luz, which is its name to this day.
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 the man went into the land of the Hittites, and built a city, and called the name thereof Luz: which is the name thereof unto this day.THE KEY
The city changes location, but its spoken name carries Luz’s identity into a new land.
THE MEANING
A city is built in unfamiliar land and called Luz; the verse places that name in the present with “unto this day.” Moving into new ground does not erase the identity carried by the name.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A new beginning requires the old identity to disappear. Here, the city built in another land receives the name Luz.
THE ROOT
וַיִּקְרָא
wayyiqrāʾ
GROWS FROM
קרא
q-r-ʾ
Call, proclaim, summon; also read aloud.
“called” in this verse is wayyiqrāʾ. The man does not merely attach a label: he calls the name into the city’s identity. This same root is heard in words for reading and calling aloud, giving the name Luz a voice that remains “unto this day.”
ALSO GROWS
miqra: Reading, proclamation, or an assembly called together.
מִקְרָא
It shows how calling can gather people around words that are spoken and heard.
qeri’ah: Calling or reading aloud.
קְרִיאָה
It echoes the verse’s spoken naming: Luz is proclaimed as the city’s name.
THE PATTERN
A spoken name can mark identity through a change of place or life.
And he called the name of that place Bethel, house of God; but the name of that city was called Luz at the first.And he said, Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, the one who struggles with God, for you have struggled with God and with men, and you have prevailed.The one who has an ear, let him hear and respond to what the breath says to the assemblies. To the one who overcomes I will give to eat from the hidden manna, and I will give him a white pebble, and upon the pebble a new name written, which no one knows except the one who takes it.THE THREAD
And he called the name of that place Bethel, house of God; but the name of that city was called Luz at the first.Both verses use קרא (qaraʾ, to call or proclaim) for naming. Genesis says the place later called Bethel was first Luz; Judges shows Luz spoken over a city built in another land, so the same name crosses a change of place.
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