What Does Judges 15:4 Mean?
And Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, took torches, turned them tail to tail, and put a torch in the middle, between two tails.
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 Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst between two tails.THE KEY
Samson turns capture into a way of carrying fire: each brand is placed between two tails so the flame can travel with the pair.
THE MEANING
Here, harm is made visible as a process: living creatures are captured, paired, and made carriers for fire. The arrangement turns one ignition point into a force that can move outward toward a harvest.
THE ROOT
וַיִּלְכֹּד
vayilkod
GROWS FROM
לכד
l-k-d
To catch, seize, or capture; to take hold of something so it cannot get away.
The word means more than finding or gathering: lakad is capture. The foxes Samson catches become part of the mechanism itself, so the verse’s “caught” marks the first step in an intentionally arranged spread of fire.
ALSO GROWS
lakad: To seize or capture.
לָכַד
This is the verb used of Samson taking hold of the foxes.
milqōdet: A snare or trap.
מִלְכֹּדֶת
The noun shows the root’s wider image of capture as something that holds its target fast.
זָנָב
zanav
GROWS FROM
זנב
z-n-b
Tail or rear; the related verb means to strike at the rear or attack those who are behind.
The same consonants link the fox’s tail with an attack on the hindmost, as in Deuteronomy 25:18. Here the firebrand is placed between two tails, the exposed rear of each animal, so the word’s bodily image touches the language of attack.
ALSO GROWS
zanav: Tail; the rear part of an animal.
זָנָב
The verse repeats this word to locate the firebrand between the paired animals.
zanav: To attack or strike at the rear.
זָנַב
This related verb appears in the description of striking those who lag behind, echoing the verse’s focus on the animals’ vulnerable rear.
THE PATTERN
A small flame, once placed among what can burn, can carry destruction from one point across a whole field.
If fire goes out and catches in thorns, so that heaped grain, or standing grain, or the field, is eaten with it, the one who kindled the fire shall surely make it whole.Even so the tongue is a small limb, and it lifts its neck over great things. Look how great a forest a little fire kindles!As fire burns the forest, and as a flame kindles the mountains.THE THREAD
His own crookednesses catch the wicked, and he is held by the cords of his falling short.The Hebrew verb translated “take” comes from the same root, לכד (lakad), as “caught” here. In Proverbs, the root depicts capture as entrapment; in Judges, Samson first captures the foxes and then uses them to carry the fire.
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