What Does Judges 13:15 Mean?
And Manoah said to the messenger of the LORD, I pray you, let us hold you back until we have made a kid for you.
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 Manoah said unto the angel of the LORD, I pray thee, let us detain thee, until we shall have made ready a kid for thee.THE KEY
The word translated “detain” makes hospitality an attempt to hold in place the very one whose nature is to be sent.
THE MEANING
You can want to keep an encounter present long enough to answer it with something tangible; Manoah asks the messenger to stay while a kid is prepared. The verse holds welcome and restraint in one gesture: a meal is offered to the one whose role is to be sent.
THE ROOT
נַעְצְרָה־נָּא
naʿatzrah-nāʾ
GROWS FROM
ע־צ־ר
ʿ-ṣ-r
To restrain, hold back, or detain.
“hold you back” in this verse is naʿatzrah-nāʾ. The root carries both the sense of holding something back and of keeping people gathered. Manoah asks the מַלְאָךְ (malʾāḵ, messenger) to stay while he prepares a meal, so the word for welcome holds a tension with the guest’s nature as one sent.
ALSO GROWS
maʿaṣar: Restraint or confinement.
מַעְצָר
This branch makes the force of “detain” concrete: the request is to keep the messenger from departing for a while.
ʿaṣeret: A solemn assembly or gathering.
עֲצֶרֶת
The same root can describe people held together in an assembly, joining the ideas of restraint and gathering.
THE PATTERN
Hospitality answers an arrival by trying to keep the visitor present and turning welcome into provision.
And I will take a morsel of bread, and prop up your hearts. After that you shall pass on, for therefore you have crossed over to your servant. And they said, So you shall make it, as you have spoken.But they pressed him, saying, Stay with us, for it is toward evening, and the day has already leaned. And he went in to stay with them.Do not let slip the opening of your home to strangers, for by it some have sheltered messengers without knowing it.THE THREAD
And the messenger of the LORD said to Manoah, Though you hold me back, I will not eat of your bread. And if you will make a rising offering, you must raise it up to the LORD. For Manoah did not perceive that he was a messenger of the LORD.The reply repeats the same root, עָצַר (ʿāṣar, restrain or hold back): “Though thou detain me.” The repeated word keeps Manoah’s offer of hospitality in view as the messenger redirects the offering to the LORD.
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