What Does Judges 14:17 Mean?
And she wept before him the seven days while their feast of drinking lasted, and on the seventh day he told her, for she closed in on him. And she told the riddle to the children of her people.
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 she wept before him the seven days, while their feast lasted: and it came to pass on the seventh day, that he told her, because she lay sore upon him: and she told the riddle to the children of her people.THE KEY
The phrase “lay sore upon him” comes from a verb of pressing: the riddle leaves his keeping through constriction.
THE MEANING
Sustained grief and pressure can make a guarded answer leave the person holding it. Once he gives it, the knowledge moves through her to her people, so what was private becomes communal. The verse leaves the pressure and the disclosure visible together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Withholding an answer guarantees it will stay private. This verse shows pressure can carry guarded knowledge beyond the person who holds it.
THE ROOT
הֱצִיקַתְהוּ
hetsiqathu
GROWS FROM
צוק
tsuq
To press, constrain, or distress.
“closed in on him” in this verse is hetsiqathu. The verb gives pressure a physical shape: it closes around what someone is keeping back. The answer comes out as the space to withhold it narrows.
ALSO GROWS
metsuqah: Distress or trouble.
מְצוּקָה
The related noun names the distress that comes with being pressed into a narrow place.
matsuq: A strait or constricted place.
מָצוֹק
This branch makes the root’s sense of pressure spatial: distress is a narrowing.
וַתַּגֵּד
vatagged
GROWS FROM
נגד
ngd
To bring into view or make known; to declare.
“told” in this verse is vatagged. The verse uses this root for both Samson’s telling her and her telling her people. What begins as disclosure between two people is set before a wider community.
ALSO GROWS
maggid: One who tells or announces.
מַגִּיד
This branch names the person who brings something into speech for others to hear.
neged: In front of or opposite.
נֶגֶד
The shared root connects telling with placing something before another person.
THE PATTERN
Sustained urging can bring a guarded response into disclosure or action.
That he laid open to her all his heart, and said to her, No blade has come up upon my head, for I have been set apart unto God from my mother's womb. If I am shaved, then my strength will turn aside from me, and I will become weak, and be like any other man.And when they pressed him until he was ashamed, he said, Send. So they sent fifty men, and they sought three days, but did not find him.But they pressed him, saying, Stay with us, for it is toward evening, and the day has already leaned. And he went in to stay with them.THE THREAD
And it came to pass, when she squeezed him every day with her words, and pressed him, that his living soul was cut short unto death.Both scenes use צוק (tsuq), meaning to press or constrain. Here and in the later scene with Delilah, pressure closes around what Samson is keeping until he gives it up.
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