What Does Judges 15:12 Mean?
And they said to him, We have come down to bind you, that we might give you into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said to them, Swear to me that you will not fall upon me yourselves.
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 they said unto him, We are come down to bind thee, that we may deliver thee into the hand of the Philistines. And Samson said unto them, Swear unto me, that ye will not fall upon me yourselves.THE KEY
The Hebrew binds two acts together: Samson is restrained so he can be placed into another power’s hand.
THE MEANING
People close to you can bind you in order to hand you into another power’s control. Samson still marks a boundary within that surrender: his own people are not to strike him themselves.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that being handed over means every boundary has vanished; Samson’s request keeps the handover distinct from an attack by his own people.
THE ROOT
לְתִתְּךָ
letittəkha
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
give, set, place
The Hebrew form behind “deliver thee” comes from natan: give, set, place. The men mean to place Samson into the Philistines’ hand, making the transfer itself concrete in the wording.
ALSO GROWS
natun: given, placed
נָתוּן
This form keeps the sense of someone being put into another’s hands.
mattanah: gift
מַתָּנָה
The same root can name what is given; here the person being given over makes the transfer coercive.
לֶאְסָרְךָ
le'esorkha
GROWS FROM
אסר
ʾ-s-r
bind, tie, restrain
“bind thee” in this verse is le'esorkha. This root grows from the act of binding into words for a captive and imprisonment. Here the physical restraint is the first step in the captivity being arranged for Samson.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāsîr: prisoner, captive
אָסִיר
The bound person becomes a captive, revealing where the men’s restraint is meant to lead.
maʾasār: imprisonment, confinement
מַאֲסָר
This branch names the state that binding can create.
THE PATTERN
Binding can become the act that transfers a person into another authority’s power.
But the Philistines gripped him, and dug out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with bronze chains. And he was grinding in the prison house.They bound him, led him away, and handed him over to Pontius Pilate the governor.And when he came to us, he lifted Paul's belt, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus says the Set-Apart Breath, so will the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man whose belt this is, and will hand him over into the hands of the nations.THE THREAD
And he turned away from them and wept. Then he returned to them, spoke with them, and took Simeon from among them, and bound him before their eyes.Genesis uses the same Hebrew root אסר (ʾ-s-r, “bind”) as Judges 15:12. Simeon is bound before his brothers’ eyes, echoing the force of restraint carried out within the captive’s own circle.
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