What Does Judges 13:4 Mean?
Now therefore guard yourself, I pray you, and drink no wine nor strong drink, and eat no unclean thing.
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
Now therefore beware, I pray thee, and drink not wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing:THE KEY
The verse begins with guarding: set-apartness reaches what enters the body before its purpose is visible.
THE MEANING
You meet set-apartness at the body’s threshold: what enters is guarded while a life still hidden from sight is being set apart. The verse makes this boundary concrete, showing that a purpose can be held in view before it becomes visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that set-apartness begins only with public action: here the boundary reaches bodily intake before the life’s purpose appears.
THE ROOT
הִשָּׁמְרִי
hishameri
GROWS FROM
שמר
shamar
Guard, keep, watch over.
“guard yourself” in this verse is hishameri. The command carries the sense of keeping watch over oneself, so the listed boundaries are the shape that vigilance takes. English “beware” can sound like a moment of caution; this root also carries the sense of sustained custody.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: Watcher, guard.
שֹׁמֵר
The same root names one who stands watch, linking the command to active protection.
mishmeret: Guard, charge, or watch.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
This branch makes the caution feel like an ongoing charge rather than a passing warning.
טָמֵא
ṭāmēʾ
GROWS FROM
טמא
Be unclean or become defiled.
The word belongs to a root that names both an unclean state and the act of defiling. That connection makes the boundary about a condition being guarded, not merely a category on a food list.
ALSO GROWS
ṭumʾāh: Impurity, uncleanness.
טֻמְאָה
The noun names the state that the boundary keeps at a distance.
ṭimmēʾ: Defile, render unclean.
טִמֵּא
This verb shows the same root describing how that state comes about.
THE PATTERN
A life set apart is guarded through concrete boundaries at the body’s thresholds before its purpose becomes visible.
He shall separate himself from wine and from the reeling drink, and shall drink no sour wine, or sour drink, nor drink any juice pressed from grapes, nor eat grapes, wet or dried.But Daniel set in his heart that he would not be soiled with the king's bread, nor with the wine he drank, and so he sought from the master of the eunuchs that he might not be soiled.Or have you not seen that your body is a temple of the Set-Apart Breath within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?THE THREAD
The LORD watches over you from all harm; he watches over your living soul.The command behind “beware” is הִשָּׁמְרִי (hishameri, guard yourself), from שָׁמַר (shamar, guard or keep); Psalm 121:7 uses the same root in “preserve.” The shared word family joins watchfulness with preservation: guarding is also being held in keeping.
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