What Does Judges 16:1 Mean?
Then Samson went to Gaza, and saw there a harlot, and went in to her.
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
Then went Samson to Gaza, and saw there an harlot, and went in unto her.THE KEY
The Hebrew word rendered “harlot” belongs to a root scripture also uses for covenant unfaithfulness, giving the verse’s sexual term a wider relational resonance.
THE MEANING
You meet the scene as a bare sequence: Samson reaches Gaza, sees a woman identified by her sexual trade, and goes in to her. The verse gives his action plainly while leaving his motive and her voice unstated; that silence is part of what the text lets you see.
THE ROOT
זֹונָה
zonah
GROWS FROM
זנה
to act as a prostitute; to commit sexual unfaithfulness
“a harlot” in this verse is zonah. Here, zonah names the woman by her sexual trade. Elsewhere the same root also speaks of covenant unfaithfulness, carrying the term from a concrete sexual relation into a wider vocabulary of fidelity and betrayal without erasing the literal scene.
ALSO GROWS
zanah: to act as a prostitute; to commit sexual unfaithfulness
זָנָה
This is the verb from which zonah is formed, making the verse’s label part of a larger root family.
zenunim: prostitution; acts of sexual unfaithfulness
זְנוּנִים
Hosea uses this form for both sexual and covenant unfaithfulness, showing the root’s wider relational reach.
THE PATTERN
The gaze can become the threshold through which desire moves into taking or entering.
And the woman saw that the tree was good for eating, and that it was a craving for the eyes, and a tree to be desired for making one wise. And she took of its fruit and ate, and gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.And it came to pass in the evening, that David rose from his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house. And from the roof he saw a woman washing herself, and the woman was very good to look upon. And David sent and sought out the woman. And one said, "Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?" And David sent messengers, and took her, and she came in to him, and he lay with her. For she was setting herself apart from her uncleanness, and she turned back to her house.But I say to you, whoever looks at a woman to crave her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.THE THREAD
The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take for yourself a wife of harlotry, and her children, for the land has surely played the harlot, turning from following the LORD.Judges uses zonah for the woman’s sexual trade; Hosea uses the same z-n-h root for a people’s departure from the LORD. The shared root does not make the situations identical; it shows how scripture extends sexual language into a way of naming relational betrayal.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us