What Does Judges 10:7 Mean?
And the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the children of Ammon.
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 anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hands of the Philistines, and into the hands of the children of Ammon.THE KEY
The verse turns divine anger into a concrete transfer of power: Israel is sold into the hands of those who now control them.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now through an unsettling image: anger becomes heat, and its consequence is Israel sold into hostile hands. It names the loss of freedom plainly, as a people placed under the control of the Philistines and the Ammonites.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that divine anger is only an inward feeling without concrete consequences.
THE ROOT
וַיִּמְכְּרֵם
wayyimkerem
GROWS FROM
מכר
m-k-r
To sell; to transfer something or someone through a sale.
“sold” in this verse is wayyimkerem. The verse uses the language of a sale for Israel’s transfer into enemy hands. That makes the loss of freedom feel concrete: the people are treated as property under another power’s control.
ALSO GROWS
nimkar: Be sold
נִמְכַּר
This passive form from the same root makes the state of being sold explicit, as Israel is here.
mimkar: A sale or thing sold
מִמְכָּר
This noun keeps the commercial sense visible beneath the military handover.
אַף
aph
GROWS FROM
אַף
Nose or nostril; in this idiom, anger and heat. The verse pairs it with חָרָה (charah), “burn” or “be kindled.”
The Hebrew phrase pictures the nostril or anger as burning: the English “anger was hot” preserves that heat. Anger is not left as an abstract feeling in this verse; the next phrase gives it a consequence in the transfer of control.
ALSO GROWS
appayim: Nostrils; also used in expressions for anger
אַפַּיִם
This form preserves the bodily image beneath anger language.
erekh appayim: Slow to anger; literally, “long of nostrils”
אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם
The same image can describe anger that is slow to flare, giving the heat in this verse a clear contrast.
THE PATTERN
Scripture depicts judgment as a handover into another power’s control.
And the LORD's anger burned hot against Israel, and he gave them into the hands of those who stripped them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, so that they could no longer stand before the faces of their enemies.How should one pursue a thousand, and two make ten thousand run, unless their rock has sold them, and the LORD has handed them over?Therefore God gave them over in the cravings of their hearts into uncleanness, for their bodies to be made weightless among themselves.THE THREAD
How should one pursue a thousand, and two make ten thousand run, unless their rock has sold them, and the LORD has handed them over?The Hebrew word translated “sold” shares the root מכר (makhar) with Judges 10:7. Deuteronomy uses the same image of a sale to show the loss of power as a transfer under hostile control.
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