What Does Judges 13:19 Mean?
So Manoah took a kid with a grain offering, and raised it up upon the rock to the LORD. And the messenger did wonderfully, and Manoah and his wife watched.
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
So Manoah took a kid with a meat offering, and offered it upon a rock unto the LORD: and the angel did wondrously; and Manoah and his wife looked on.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “wondrously” names an act beyond ordinary measure, and Manoah and his wife witness it directly.
THE MEANING
You see an offering set upon a rock before the LORD, and the messenger acting beyond ordinary measure. Manoah, whose name carries the sense of rest, and his wife look on as the wonder unfolds.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Wonder does not have to remain unseen or inaccessible; here, both Manoah and his wife witness it.
THE ROOT
מַפְלִא
maphli
GROWS FROM
פ־ל־א
p-l-ʾ
To be extraordinary, beyond ordinary measure; to do something wondrous.
“did wonderfully” in this verse is maphli. The Hebrew verb presents the messenger’s act as exceeding what is ordinary. The verse holds that beyond-ordinary act together with the couple’s direct sight of it: what surpasses understanding is still witnessed.
ALSO GROWS
pele: A wonder, an extraordinary act.
פֶּלֶא
It names the quality of the messenger’s action as something that exceeds the ordinary.
nifla’ot: Wonders, wondrous acts.
נִפְלָאוֹת
This related form shows the same root describing acts that stand beyond ordinary human reach.
מָנוֹחַ
Manoah
GROWS FROM
נ־ו־ח
n-w-ḥ
To rest, settle, or come to rest.
Manoah’s name carries the sense of rest or resting place. That name stands beside a scene of active wonder, with Manoah and his wife together as witnesses.
ALSO GROWS
nuach: To rest or settle.
נוּחַ
The root gives Manoah’s name its sense of rest.
menuchah: Rest, resting place.
מְנוּחָה
This related form makes the name’s connection to rest tangible.
THE PATTERN
Divine encounter makes an ordinary material place a visible site of wonder.
And the messenger of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not eaten up.Then the messenger of the LORD stretched out the tip of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the pressed cakes, and fire went up out of the rock and finished the flesh and the pressed cakes. Then the messenger of the LORD went away out of his sight.And a messenger of the LORD was seen by him, standing at the right hand of the altar of incense.THE THREAD
Who is like you among the mighty ones, O LORD? Who is like you, majestic in being set apart, awe-inspiring in praises, doing wonders?“Doing wonders” uses the same פלא root as “did wondrously” in Judges 13:19. The shared root connects this witnessed act with the wider language of the LORD’s wondrous works.
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