What Does Judges 15:5 Mean?
And when he had set the torches on fire, he sent them into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up both the sheaves and the standing grain, with the vineyards and olive groves.
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 when he had set the brands on fire, he let them go into the standing corn of the Philistines, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and olives.THE KEY
The “letting go” is the release itself: the Hebrew verb sends fire-bearing foxes into what is already gathered and what is still standing.
THE MEANING
Here, release has a material reach: fire moves through the shocks, the standing grain, the vineyards, and the olives. The damage touches both what has been gathered and what is still growing.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that released harm stays within one boundary: here, the fire reaches several kinds of provision and growth.
THE ROOT
וַיְשַׁלְּחֵם
vayĕshallĕḥēm
GROWS FROM
שלח
sh-l-ḥ
Send forth, release, let go.
“sent them” in this verse is vayĕshallĕḥēm. The Hebrew verb carries the sense of sending something outward from its point of origin. Its branches include שָׁלִיחַ (shaliaḥ, a messenger or one sent) and שִׁלֹחַ (Shiloach, “sent,” the waters associated with restored sight); here what is sent carries fire into the fields.
ALSO GROWS
shaliaḥ: Messenger; one sent.
שָׁלִיחַ
A messenger is defined by being sent outward; here, the released foxes carry the fire outward.
Shiloach: “Sent”; the name of the waters of Shiloah and the pool of Siloam.
שִׁלֹחַ
The same root names waters associated with restored sight, while this verse shows what happens when fire is sent into a field.
קְמֵי
qĕmê
GROWS FROM
קום
q-w-m
Rise, stand, be established.
“standing corn” in this verse is qĕmê. The standing grain is described as what has risen and remains upright, from קוּם (qum, rise or stand). Set beside the shocks, it makes the reach of the fire plain: it consumes both what is gathered and what is still growing.
ALSO GROWS
qum: Rise; stand.
קוּם
The grain in the field is still standing when the released fire reaches it.
maqom: Place; a place of standing or establishment.
מָקוֹם
The root’s sense of standing also appears in a place where something is established; here the standing crop is exposed in its place in the field.
THE PATTERN
Once fire is released into combustible growth, it can spread beyond its point of origin and consume what lies in its path.
For wickedness burns as the fire; it shall devour the briers and thorns, and kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall rise like the lifting of smoke.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!THE THREAD
So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but shall do what I delight in, and shall break through in the thing to which I sent it.Judges uses שָׁלַח (shalach, send or release) for letting the foxes go; Isaiah uses the same root in “I sent it.” What is sent enters its field of action and carries an effect: here fire spreads through the crops, while Isaiah’s word accomplishes its purpose.
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