What Does Judges 13:24 Mean?
And the woman bore a son and called his name Samson, and the child grew, and the LORD blessed him.
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 woman bare a son, and called his name Samson: and the child grew, and the LORD blessed him.THE KEY
The word translated “grew” carries the sense of becoming great, so Samson’s growth is an enlargement of life unfolding under blessing.
THE MEANING
Your life is received before it is measured: birth, naming, growth, and blessing belong together in this verse. Samson’s name is commonly linked with the sun, while the word for his growth carries the sense of becoming great. The verse sees becoming as something held within the LORD’s blessing.
THE ROOT
וַיִּגְדַּל
vayigdal
GROWS FROM
גדל
Grow, become great, enlarge.
English “grew” can sound like simple passage of time, but this Hebrew form shares its root with words for greatness and a tower. The image is of enlargement: the child becomes more as blessing marks the life in which his growth unfolds.
ALSO GROWS
gadol: Great, large.
גָּדוֹל
The child’s growth and greatness share the same seed, so growth carries a sense of enlargement.
migdal: Tower.
מִגְדָּל
A tower is raised up; this branch lets “grew” carry the image of rising and becoming substantial.
שִׁמְשׁוֹן
Shimshon
GROWS FROM
שמש
Sun; the name Shimshon is commonly connected with the Hebrew word for sun.
Samson is commonly understood as a sun-linked name, though the derivation is not certain. This brings an image of sunlight into the sentence before the verse describes the child growing and receiving blessing, without making the name a prediction.
ALSO GROWS
shemesh: Sun.
שֶׁמֶשׁ
This is the Hebrew word the name is commonly linked to, giving Samson a solar image.
Shimshon: Samson; often interpreted as sun-like or little sun.
שִׁמְשׁוֹן
The name carries the sun-image into the child’s identity before the verse describes his growth.
וַיְבָרְכֵהוּ
vayevarkhehu
GROWS FROM
ברך
Bless; traditionally associated with bending the knee.
“blessed him” in this verse is vayevarkhehu. The same consonants appear in the Hebrew word for “knee,” preserving a bodily image of bending within the blessing word. Here, blessing is something directed toward the child’s growing life, not merely a favorable label.
ALSO GROWS
berakhah: Blessing.
בְּרָכָה
This noun keeps the verse’s act of blessing visible as something given.
berekh: Knee.
בֶּרֶךְ
The traditional connection to the knee adds an embodied image of bending to the root of blessing.
THE PATTERN
Scripture presents a life growing while divine favor is present with it.
And the LORD visited Hannah, so that she conceived, and bore three sons and two daughters. And the child Samuel grew before the LORD.And Jesus cut his way forward in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and humankind.THE THREAD
And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Bear fruit and multiply, and fill the earth, and tread it under your foot, and rule over the fish of the sea, and over the winged of the heavens, and over every living thing that creeps upon the earth."Judges uses בָּרַךְ (barakh, bless) for the LORD’s action toward the child; Genesis uses the same root in the first blessing over human life. The shared root places Samson’s growth inside Scripture’s larger pattern of life receiving blessing as it unfolds.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us