What Does Judges 13:18 Mean?
And the messenger of the LORD said to him, Why do you ask after my name in this way, since it is wonderful?
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 angel of the LORD said unto him, Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret?THE KEY
The messenger’s name is called “secret” because it opens onto a nature too wondrous to contain in a label.
THE MEANING
When you reach for a name that would make the messenger fully graspable, the answer meets you with wonder that exceeds your grasp. The question is not dismissed; it reveals that a name can point toward a nature without enclosing it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that naming something gives you full possession of what it is.
THE ROOT
פֶּלִאי
pelî
GROWS FROM
פלא
To be extraordinary or marvelous, beyond ordinary reach or comprehension.
“wonderful” in this verse is pelî. The word rendered “secret” carries the sense of the extraordinary, something beyond full comprehension. The question asks for a name, שֵׁם (shem, name as nature), and the answer lets that name point to a nature too wondrous for a label to contain.
ALSO GROWS
pele: Wonder, marvel.
פֶּלֶא
This noun from the same root appears in the name “Wonderful” in Isaiah 9:6, where a name also opens onto a nature marked by wonder.
niflaʾot: Wonders, marvelous deeds.
נִפְלָאוֹת
This plural form names wonders that exceed ordinary human reach, showing how the root holds both what is beyond comprehension and what is encountered as marvel.
THE PATTERN
What exceeds human grasp is marked by wonder rather than made smaller by naming.
Such perceiving is too wonderful for me; it is high, and I cannot reach it.For a child is born to us, a son is given to us; the governance shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Father of the Ages, Prince of Wholeness.Jesus said to them, Did you never read in the scriptures, The stone the builders tested and cast aside has become the head of the angle; this comes from the side of the LORD, and it is wondrous in our eyes?THE THREAD
For a child is born to us, a son is given to us; the governance shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Father of the Ages, Prince of Wholeness.“Wonderful” in Isaiah carries the same פלא root family as the messenger’s “secret” name. In both verses, a name opens onto a nature marked by wonder rather than reducing that nature to a familiar label.
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