What Does Judges 14:11 Mean?
And when they saw him, they took thirty companions to be with 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 it came to pass, when they saw him, that they brought thirty companions to be with him.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “companions” carries the root of tending a flock, but the verse leaves open whether this company tends Samson or simply surrounds him.
THE MEANING
Being seen can gather a circle around you, and its nearness becomes part of the moment you are entering. Yet the verse names their presence without naming its quality: company can surround a person before its care is known.
THE ROOT
רֵעִים
rēʿîm
GROWS FROM
רעה
To tend or feed; the related noun רֵעַ (rēaʿ) means companion or associate.
The word for companions is linked to a root that also speaks of tending and feeding. That does not make these men shepherds; it lets companionship carry an undertone of shared care, while the verse leaves the quality of their company unresolved.
ALSO GROWS
rōʿeh: Shepherd; one who tends or feeds.
רֹעֶה
The same root gives companionship an echo of tending, though the verse does not say these companions care for Samson.
mirʿeh: Pasture; grazing place.
מִרְעֶה
This branch evokes a flock gathered in a shared place, adding a faint image of belonging to the company brought around him.
THE PATTERN
At a charged moment, the people gathered around one person become part of the event’s meaning.
And when they saw him, they took thirty companions to be with him.Two are better than one, because they have good wages for their toil.And they came to him, bringing a paralyzed man, lifted by four.THE THREAD
And he blessed Joseph, and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has shepherded me all my life long to this day,The Hebrew noun behind “companions” is linked to the root that can mean shepherd or feed. Jacob calls God the one who has shepherded him; that shared root places a possibility of tending beneath companionship, while Judges leaves the thirty men’s care undefined.
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