What Does Judges 11:10 Mean?
And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, Let the LORD be the one who hears between us, if we do not do so according to your words.
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 elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, The LORD be witness between us, if we do not so according to thy words.THE KEY
The one called a witness is literally a hearer, so this agreement places its words before God and their fulfillment within his hearing.
THE MEANING
A promise stands in the open before the LORD, the hearer between those who make it. Its words take shape in the action that follows.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a promise is fulfilled just by saying it is undone here: its words remain bound to the action they name.
THE ROOT
שֹׁמֵעַ
shomēaʿ
GROWS FROM
שמע
To hear or listen, often with the force of heeding and responding.
“the one who hears” in this verse is shomēaʿ. The Hebrew pictures the LORD as a hearer between the parties. Hearing can carry the force of heeding, so the promise is spoken with its answer in view: whether the promised action follows.
ALSO GROWS
shema: Hear and respond; listen with heed.
שְׁמַע
The familiar call to hear makes listening active, illuminating the hearer who stands between the parties.
shemōaʿ: Hearing or obeying.
שְׁמֹעַ
This form appears in Samuel’s words about obeying the LORD’s voice, linking hearing with the response that follows.
דְּבָרְךָ
devarəkha
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak or declare; the related noun can mean a word or a matter.
The word for “words” belongs to a root whose noun can name both speech and the matter at hand. Here, the words set out the action that will make the agreement real.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word, matter, or affair.
דָּבָר
The same noun can name what is said and the matter being agreed upon.
dibber: Spoke or declared.
דִּבֵּר
The related verb shows speech as an act; in this verse, what is declared is joined directly to what will be done.
THE PATTERN
A commitment becomes legible in whether action follows the spoken word.
When you vow a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not linger to make it whole, for the LORD your God will surely seek it from you, and it would be a shortcoming in you.In whose eyes the despised one is spurned, yet he gives weight to those in awe of the LORD. He swears to his own harm, and does not shift.Before all things, my brethren, do not swear, neither by heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath. Let your yes be yes, and your no be no, lest you fall under judgment.THE THREAD
And Samuel said, Does the LORD delight in rising offerings and slaughtered offerings as much as in hearing and responding to the voice of the LORD? Behold, hearing and responding is better than a slaughtered offering; to prick the ear is better than the fat of rams.The same שׁמע root links the LORD as “hearer” here with “obeying” the LORD’s voice in Samuel’s words. Hearing carries through to response, making the agreement’s force visible in what is done.
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