What Does Judges 15:10 Mean?
And the men of Judah said, Why have you come up against us? And they answered, We have come up to bind Samson, to do to him as he did to us.
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 men of Judah said, Why are ye come up against us? And they answered, To bind Samson are we come up, to do to him as he hath done to us.THE KEY
The Philistines turn Samson’s past action into the reason they intend to bind him in return.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now through the blunt arithmetic of retaliation: the harm attributed to Samson becomes the stated reason for binding him. The Philistines describe the restraint they intend as an answer in kind, making injury both the grievance and the measure of their response.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the claim that retaliation is merely something that happens to you: the speakers name binding as what they have come to do, and make the earlier injury their warrant.
THE ROOT
לֶאְסֹר
leʾsōr
GROWS FROM
אָסַר
ʾāsar
to bind, confine, or restrain
This root’s word family also names a captive (אָסִיר, ʾāsîr) and what is bound or forbidden (אָסוּר, ʾāsûr). English can make “bind” sound like one physical act; Hebrew keeps capture and imposed restriction close together. Here the intended answer to injury is a tightening of another person’s freedom.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāsîr: captive, prisoner
אָסִיר
The root names not only the act of binding but also the person held by it.
ʾāsûr: bound, restrained; forbidden
אָסוּר
The word family extends from physical bonds to restriction, deepening the force of the restraint the Philistines intend.
יְהוּדָה
Yehudah
GROWS FROM
ידה
y-d-h
to praise, give thanks, or acknowledge
The name Judah carries the language of praise and acknowledgment, while the verse gives these men a role in turning injury into a reciprocal demand. The name and the action stand side by side without softening the binding they intend.
ALSO GROWS
yādāh: to praise, thank, or acknowledge
יָדָה
This verb carries the verbal seed associated with the name Judah.
tōdāh: thanksgiving, praise
תּוֹדָה
This related word keeps the name’s connection to acknowledgment and praise audible.
THE PATTERN
Retaliation makes prior harm the measure for the next harm, keeping the exchange in motion.
If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy and sevenfold.Break for break, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has set a blemish in a man, so shall it be set upon him.You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.THE THREAD
And they spoke to him, saying, No, but we will bind you fast and give you into their hand, but surely we will not kill you. And they bound him with two new cords, and brought him up from the rock.The next verse turns this intention into action: Judah binds Samson with new cords and brings him from the rock. The same root, אָסַר (ʾāsar, bind), joins the announced purpose here to the physical restraint there.
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