What Does Judges 15:18 Mean?
And he was parched with thirst, and called out to the LORD, and said, You have given this great deliverance into the hand of your servant, and now shall I die of thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?
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 he was sore athirst, and called on the LORD, and said, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant: and now shall I die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised?THE KEY
A great deliverance does not make the body self-sustaining; thirst exposes the life still received from God.
THE MEANING
You can carry a real deliverance while feeling the body’s urgent need and fearing what may happen next. The victory is real, and so is the danger of dying from thirst and falling into hostile hands. The cry brings both truths before the LORD.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A great deliverance does not mean your body is invulnerable or your fear has vanished.
THE ROOT
תְּשׁוּעָה
teshuʿah
GROWS FROM
י־שׁ־ע
y-sh-ʿ
To deliver, to bring out of peril and toward life.
תְּשׁוּעָה (teshuʿah, deliverance) grows from י־שׁ־ע (y-sh-ʿ), the root of יָשַׁע (yasha, to deliver or bring out). Its branches include יֵשׁוּעַ (Yeshua, a name formed from the same root), holding the nature of deliverance inside a name.
ALSO GROWS
yasha: To deliver, bring out
יָשַׁע
The verb names the movement that the noun תְּשׁוּעָה (teshuʿah, deliverance) names as an event.
Yeshua: A name formed from the root of deliverance
יֵשׁוּעַ
The name carries the same root nature as the deliverance the speaker recognizes.
וַיִּצְמָא
wayyiṣmāʾ
GROWS FROM
צ־מ־א
ṣ-m-ʾ
To thirst, to be dry with thirst.
“parched with thirst” in this verse is wayyiṣmāʾ. The root leaves thirst in the body: a person can be at the edge of what flesh can endure even after a great victory. צִמָּאוֹן (ṣimmāʾôn, drought or thirsty land) carries the same lack across the land itself, showing that this is a real need for sustaining water, not a failure of deliverance.
ALSO GROWS
ṣāmēʾ: Thirsty
צָמֵא
This names the person’s bodily state, not a lack of worth or a denial of what has already been given.
ṣimmāʾôn: Drought, thirsty land
צִמָּאוֹן
The same root can name thirst in a person and the land’s need for water.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance remains embodied: the cry of a thirsty body is heard and met with water.
But God split open the hollow place that is in the jaw, and waters came out of it. And when he had drunk, his breath returned to him, and he lived again. Therefore he called its name Enhakkore, which is in Lehi to this day.When the bowed ones and the needy seek waters, and there is none, and their tongue dries up with thirst, I, the LORD, will answer them. I, the God of Israel, will not let them go.On the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.THE THREAD
Then with leaping you will draw waters out of the springs of deliverance.The Hebrew word behind “salvation” is יְשׁוּעָה (yeshuah, deliverance), from the same root as the “deliverance” in Judges 15:18. Isaiah places that root beside water drawn from a well, bringing deliverance and the thirsty body’s need into one image.
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