What Does Judges 14:10 Mean?
So his father went down to the woman, and Samson made a feast of drinking there, for so the young men used to do.
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 his father went down unto the woman: and Samson made there a feast; for so used the young men to do.THE KEY
The “feast” is a drinking feast at its root, so the verse names this marriage gathering by the act at its center.
THE MEANING
A bond takes shape among the people who gather around it. The father’s visit and the feast give the union a shared, customary form.
THE ROOT
מִשְׁתֶּה
mishteh
GROWS FROM
שתה
to drink
“feast of drinking” in this verse is mishteh. מִשְׁתֶּה (mishteh, a drinking feast) grows from שָׁתָה (shatah, to drink). English names the broad event; Hebrew also keeps the drinking at its center, showing the gathering as a shared practice.
ALSO GROWS
shatah: to drink
שָׁתָה
The verb names the act carried within the feast’s name.
mishteh: a drinking feast or banquet
מִשְׁתֶּה
This is the verse’s word for the gathering that marks the marriage.
יַעֲשׂוּ
ya'asu
GROWS FROM
עשׂה
to do, make
“to do” in this verse is ya'asu. The Hebrew says, “for thus the young men do,” making the custom visible as repeated action. The practice lives in what people enact together, rather than in an abstract rule.
ALSO GROWS
asah: to do, make
עָשָׂה
The young men’s customary practice is expressed through this root’s basic action.
ma'aseh: deed, work
מַעֲשֶׂה
This related noun shows the same root taking shape as an action or deed.
THE PATTERN
A marriage becomes socially visible through a feast that gathers others around the union.
And Laban gathered all the men of the place, and made a feast.And on the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. And Jesus was also called to the wedding, and his disciples with him.The governance of the heavens is like a certain king, who made a wedding for his son,THE THREAD
And Laban gathered all the men of the place, and made a feast.Genesis uses the same Hebrew noun, מִשְׁתֶּה (mishteh, a drinking feast), for a wedding gathering. The shared word shows marriage moving into a feast where others assemble around it.
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