What Does Judges 15:1 Mean?
But after a while, in the time of the wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife with a young goat, and he said, I will go in to my wife, into the chamber. But her father would not let him go in.
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
But it came to pass within a while after, in the time of wheat harvest, that Samson visited his wife with a kid; and he said, I will go in to my wife into the chamber. But her father would not suffer him to go in.THE KEY
Her father’s refusal is phrased as withholding a gift: he does not give Samson entry.
THE MEANING
A return does not guarantee that the door opens: Samson arrives with a young goat intending to enter his wife’s room, but her father refuses him passage. You are left where the desire for access meets another person’s control of the threshold.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that returning guarantees welcome: Samson arrives, yet her father still withholds entry.
THE ROOT
נְתָנוֹ
nətānô
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
give, set, place
“would not suffer him to go in” in this verse is nətānô. The Hebrew says her father does not “give” Samson to enter, framing the refusal as permission withheld. The root’s concrete sense of giving or placing makes entry something the father can grant or keep back.
ALSO GROWS
mattān: gift, present
מַתָּן
A gift is something given; this branch makes the withheld entry feel like a grant Samson does not receive.
tenah: give!
תְּנָה
This imperative is the same root in an act of granting, clarifying how the father’s refusal is expressed as not giving Samson passage.
וַיִּפְקֹד
wayyifqōd
GROWS FROM
פקד
p-q-d
attend to, take account of, appoint
English “visited” can sound like a brief stop, while paqad also carries the sense of attending to someone or taking account of them. Samson’s return directs his attention toward his wife, but the verse separates that attention from the right to enter.
ALSO GROWS
pequddah: appointment, charge, oversight
פְּקֻדָּה
This branch shows how the root’s attention can become an entrusted responsibility, deepening the sense of a visit as more than passing by.
paqīd: officer, overseer
פָּקִיד
An overseer is appointed to attend to something; the root shades “visited” with active attention while the father controls the threshold.
THE PATTERN
What is given or withheld determines what another can receive.
And God said, "Look, I have given you every seed-bearing plant upon the face of all the earth, and every tree bearing fruit with seed in it. It shall be yours for food."For the LORD God is sun and shield. The LORD gives favor and weight. He will hold back no good from those who walk in wholeness.For God so loved the world that he gave his only-born Son, that everyone who leans their full weight into him should not perish, but have the life of the ages.THE THREAD
For the LORD God is sun and shield. The LORD gives favor and weight. He will hold back no good from those who walk in wholeness.The same root behind “will give” appears in Judges as “give him to enter.” Psalm pairs giving with an explicit promise not to withhold good, making the denied entry in Judges an unmistakable act of withholding permission.
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