What Does Judges 10:10 Mean?
And the children of Israel cried out to the LORD, saying, We have missed the mark against you, for we have let go of our God and served the Baalim.
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 children of Israel cried unto the LORD, saying, We have sinned against thee, both because we have forsaken our God, and also served Baalim.THE KEY
The confession names a two-part movement: leaving the LORD and giving your service to a substitute.
THE MEANING
Here, your missing is not abstract: it takes shape as leaving the LORD and giving your service elsewhere. The cry makes that divided direction speakable before God now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that wrongdoing is merely private rule-breaking: the confession names a relationship forsaken and service transferred.
THE ROOT
עָזַבְנוּ
ʿāzavnû
GROWS FROM
עזב
To leave, abandon, or forsake.
“let go of” in this verse is ʿāzavnû. The root makes forsaking a movement of departure: the relationship is left behind. Here that leaving is paired with serving Baalim, so “forsaken” and “served” describe two sides of redirected allegiance.
ALSO GROWS
ʿōzēv: One who leaves or forsakes.
עֹזֵב
This form makes the departure an active choice, echoing the confession’s “we have forsaken.”
ʿāzûv: Abandoned or forsaken.
עָזוּב
This form shows the state left behind when the act of forsaking is complete.
וַנַּעֲבֹד
va-naʿavod
GROWS FROM
עבד
To serve or work.
The root joins service with work, so the verse describes allegiance enacted, not only an inward preference. Service places the one who serves in relation to the one served.
ALSO GROWS
ʿeved: Servant.
עֶבֶד
This branch shows how service describes a relationship, giving weight to the verse’s naming of whom Israel serves.
ʿavodah: Work or service.
עֲבֹדָה
This branch makes the allegiance practical: it is carried out through what one does.
חָטָאנוּ
ḥāṭāʾnû
GROWS FROM
חטא
To miss, go wrong, or sin.
“missed the mark” in this verse is ḥāṭāʾnû. The root’s sense of missing keeps the failure concrete rather than vague. The verse names where the missing leads: leaving the LORD and serving another.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēt: Missing or sin.
חֵטְא
This noun carries the root’s sense of a miss, which the confession immediately makes specific.
ḥaṭṭāʾt: Sin; in some contexts, an offering for the missing.
חַטָּאת
This related word keeps the idea of missing visible even when the passage turns toward what addresses it.
THE PATTERN
Returning begins when departure and redirected service are named together.
And they cried out to the LORD and said, We have missed the mark, because we have let go of the LORD and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth. But now snatch us out of the hand of our enemies, and we will serve you.Let the wicked leave his way, and the man of crookedness his plans. Let him turn back to the LORD, and he will have compassion on him; and to our God, for he will abundantly release.THE THREAD
For my people have done two evils; they have let go of me, the spring of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, shattered cisterns that cannot grip water.The same Hebrew root עזב (ʿāzab, leave or forsake) names the departure in both verses. Jeremiah gives that departure an image: leaving a living-water source and laboring over empty cisterns, revealing the substitute implicit in the service named here.
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