What Does Judges 16:14 Mean?
And she drove it in with the peg, and said to him, The Philistines are upon you, Samson. And he woke from his sleep, and pulled up the peg of the loom, and the web.
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 she fastened it with the pin, and said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awaked out of his sleep, and went away with the pin of the beam, and with the web.THE KEY
The most dangerous part of this escape is that it still works: each successful break makes the next alarm easier to dismiss.
THE MEANING
Samson wakes and tears the loom’s pin and web free, while the familiar alarm still makes escape seem ordinary. The verse holds visible strength beside unseen vulnerability: being awake to the immediate threat does not mean seeing the larger pattern. A release in one moment does not prove the deeper freedom is secure.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that surviving the same warning again means the danger has passed; repeated escape can conceal how exposed someone has become.
THE ROOT
וַיִּסַּע
wayyissaʿ
GROWS FROM
נסע
Pull up stakes, move away, set out.
“pulled up” in this verse is wayyissaʿ. The verb can describe pulling up stakes and setting out, so this is more forceful than simply going away with the loom parts: Samson uproots the pin and web as he leaves. The escape is a literal removal of what holds the weave in place, though the repeated alarms make that release feel more secure than it is.
ALSO GROWS
nāsaʿ: Pull up stakes; set out on a journey.
נָסַע
This is the verb’s basic movement from a fixed place, giving force to Samson’s removal of the loom’s parts.
massāʿ: A journey or stage of travel.
מַסָּע
The same root carries removal into onward movement: Samson leaves with the fastening and web still attached.
וַתִּתְקַע
vatitqaʿ
GROWS FROM
תקע
Drive or thrust in; the root also describes sounding a horn.
“drove it in” in this verse is vatitqaʿ. The root spans driving something into place and sounding a horn. Here the pin is driven into the loom just as Delilah voices an alarm; the verse uses the fastening sense, while the root’s other branch lets the action and warning resonate together.
ALSO GROWS
tāqaʿ: Drive in, thrust, or fasten.
תָּקַע
This is the action Delilah takes with the pin before she gives the warning.
tāqaʿ ba-shofar: Blow or sound the shofar, a ram’s horn.
תָּקַע בַּשּׁוֹפָר
The same root can describe sounding an alarm, echoing the warning she speaks as she fastens the loom.
THE PATTERN
Waking marks a threshold: a person may rise into release, or discover that the strength behind an old escape is gone.
I lie down and sleep; I wake, for the LORD bears my weight.And behold, the messenger of the LORD stood over him, and a light shone in the prison, and he struck Peter on the side and raised him up, saying, "Stand up quickly." And his chains fell away from his hands.And she said, The Philistines are upon you, Samson. And he woke from his sleep, and said, I will go out as I have done before, time after time, and shake myself loose. But he did not perceive that the LORD had turned aside from him.THE THREAD
And she said, The Philistines are upon you, Samson. And he woke from his sleep, and said, I will go out as I have done before, time after time, and shake myself loose. But he did not perceive that the LORD had turned aside from him.The same alarm and awakening return, but this time Samson cannot break free. The echo reveals what verse 14’s successful escape conceals: repeated outward release can look like strength even as its deeper source is gone.
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