What Does Judges 14:19 Mean?
And the breath of the LORD rushed upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon and struck down thirty men of them, and stripped them, and gave changes of garments to those who had brought the riddle to light. And his nostrils burned, and he went up to his father's house.
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 Spirit of the LORD came upon him, and he went down to Ashkelon, and slew thirty men of them, and took their spoil, and gave change of garments unto them which expounded the riddle. And his anger was kindled, and he went up to his father’s house.THE KEY
The verb translated “came upon” also carries the sense of advancing or prospering, while the verse’s surge ends in a brutal, material aftermath.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s breath comes upon Samson as force in motion, and what follows is thirty deaths, seized clothing, and payment to the riddle-solvers. His anger burns, and he returns to his father’s house; the verse holds the divine arrival and its violent human cost together without explaining them away.
THE ROOT
וַתִּצְלַח
vattitslaḥ
GROWS FROM
צלח
ṣ-l-ḥ
To rush through or advance; in another verbal form, to prosper or cause to prosper.
“rushed upon” in this verse is vattitslaḥ. Here the LORD’s breath is described as arriving with momentum. The same root can describe a journey made successful, yet this verse keeps the violent outcome in view rather than turning the root into approval.
ALSO GROWS
ṣālaḥ: To advance, rush, or prosper.
צָלַח
This root’s range holds both the rushing arrival in this verse and the sense of forward movement.
hiṣlîaḥ: He made prosper or succeed.
הִצְלִיחַ
Genesis uses this form for whether the LORD made a journey prosper, showing another shade of the same root.
וַיִּחַר
wayyiḥar
GROWS FROM
חרה
ḥ-r-h
To burn or become hot.
“his nostrils burned” in this verse is wayyiḥar. The clause pairs this heat verb with אַפּוֹ (ʾappô, “his nose”; by idiom, “his anger”), giving anger a bodily image of heat in the nostrils. English keeps the fire in “kindled” while the Hebrew also preserves the nose inside the anger-word.
ALSO GROWS
ḥārâ: Burned or became hot.
חָרָה
This is a fuller form of the same verb family, making the heat beneath “kindled” explicit.
yiḥar: Will burn or become hot.
יִחַר
This form shows the same final-heh root with its weak final letter absent in the inflection.
הַחֲלִיפוֹת
haḥălîp̄ôṯ
GROWS FROM
חלף
ḥ-l-p̄
To pass, change, or exchange.
“changes of garments” in this verse is haḥălîp̄ôṯ. The payment is tangible: the riddle-solvers receive replacement garments, not an abstract reward. The root’s sense of passing or changing makes the exchange itself part of the verse’s structure: knowledge is purchased through clothing taken from the dead and transferred to others.
ALSO GROWS
ḥālap̄: To pass by or change.
חָלַף
Its sense of passing into another state illuminates the garments changing hands.
ḥălîp̄āh: An exchange or change.
חֲלִיפָה
This singular form belongs to the same root as the garments given as payment here.
THE PATTERN
A force that arrives upon a person becomes visible in what follows, while the text preserves the concrete consequence.
And when he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him, and the breath of the LORD rushed upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burned with fire, and the bonds tore loose from his hands.And the breath of God rushed upon Saul when he heard those words, and his nostrils burned greatly.How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Set-Apart Breath and with power, who went through, doing good and healing all who were pressed down by the Slanderer, for God was with him.THE THREAD
And the man, gazing at her, held still, to know whether the LORD had made his road break through or not.Judges uses the same Hebrew root for the LORD’s breath rushing upon Samson that Genesis uses when asking whether the LORD made the servant’s journey prosper. The shared root carries motion and forward progress; it sharpens the verb here without turning the violence into approval.
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