What Does Judges 1:36 Mean?
And the border of the Amorites was from the climb of Akrabbim, from the rock and upward.
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 coast of the Amorites was from the going up to Akrabbim, from the rock, and upward.THE KEY
The Amorite border is narrated as a climb: Hebrew marks both the ascent to Akrabbim and the land continuing upward with forms of the same root.
THE MEANING
This verse locates the Amorite border from the ascent to Akrabbim, by the rock, and then higher along the land. The words translated “going up” and “upward” both grow from עלה, so the boundary is traced as rising ground.
THE ROOT
מַעֲלֵה
maʿălēh
GROWS FROM
עלה
rise, ascend, go up
“climb” in this verse is maʿălēh. The verse uses two forms of עלה: maʿălēh for the ascent at Akrabbim and maʿlāh for the rise beyond the rock. The same root appears in aliyah, an ascent, and olah, a burnt offering, literally, “that which goes up”, linking this terrain to a wider Hebrew word-family.
ALSO GROWS
maʿălēh: Ascent; a going up
מַעֲלֵה
It names the rise at Akrabbim where the described border begins.
maʿlāh: Upward; toward a higher place
מָעְלָה
It carries the border beyond the rock and higher along the land.
ʿōlāh: Burnt offering; “that which goes up”
עֹלָה
It shows the same root naming an upward movement beyond the physical terrain in this verse.
ʿaliyyāh: Ascent; going up
עֲלִיָּה
It is another noun from the same root that makes the verse’s repeated upward movement visible.
THE PATTERN
Scripture renders boundaries as located limits that give a territory its extent.
You set a boundary they may not cross; they do not return to cover the earth.And said, This far shall you come, but no further, and here shall your swelling waves be held?And he made from one blood every nation of humankind to settle upon all the face of the earth, marking out their fitted seasons and setting the boundary stones of their dwelling.THE THREAD
You set a boundary they may not cross; they do not return to cover the earth.The word translated “coast” here is גְּבוּל (gevul), meaning boundary; Psalm 104:9 uses the same Hebrew word for the limit set for the waters. One verse traces a border across rising land, while the other names the waters’ boundary.
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