What Does Judges 16:16 Mean?
And it came to pass, when she squeezed him every day with her words, and pressed him, that his living soul was cut short unto death.
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 it came to pass, when she pressed him daily with her words, and urged him, so that his soul was vexed unto death;THE KEY
The Hebrew says that repeated words press a person until his living self grows short, making this more than irritation: the pressure reaches toward death.
THE MEANING
Repeated words can press a person until the living self feels shortened toward death. This verse names verbal pressure at its most severe: it reaches past hurt feelings into the will to live.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the lie that words cannot do real harm because they leave no visible wound: sustained verbal pressure can reach the will to live.
THE ROOT
וַתִּקְצַר
vattiqtsar
GROWS FROM
קצר
qatsar
to be short, become short, or cut short
“cut short” in this verse is vattiqtsar. Where KJV says “vexed,” וַתִּקְצַר (vattiqtsar, became short) says that נַפְשׁוֹ (nafsho, his living soul) grows short. The same root’s shortness and cutting branches make the pressure feel measurable: his living self is narrowing toward death.
ALSO GROWS
qotser: shortness
קֹצֶר
In Exodus 6:9, it describes shortness of רוּחַ (ruach, breath), echoing the shortened living self in this verse.
qatsir: harvest; crop gathered by cutting
קָצִיר
This related harvest word keeps the root’s cutting sense visible beside an English rendering that can sound like mere agitation.
דְּבָרֶיהָ
devaréha
GROWS FROM
דבר
davar
speech; a word, matter, or thing
The Hebrew word for “words” belongs to a family where a word can also be a matter or thing. Here, speech is not incidental: the verse links the repeated words directly to the shortening of his living self.
ALSO GROWS
davar: word; matter or thing
דָּבָר
Its range makes the words feel like the concrete pressure bearing on him, not merely passing sound.
dibber: to speak or declare
דִּבֵּר
The speaking branch brings the repeated act into view: the pressure comes through words delivered day after day.
THE PATTERN
Sustained pressure can shorten or exhaust the living self, and scripture names that cost plainly.
And Moses spoke thus to the children of Israel, but they did not hear and respond to Moses, from shortness of breath and from hard service.Death and life are in the hand of the tongue, and those who love it eat its fruit.For consider him who has remained under such speaking against himself, from those who miss the mark, so that you do not tire, going slack in your living souls.THE THREAD
And Moses spoke thus to the children of Israel, but they did not hear and respond to Moses, from shortness of breath and from hard service.The root קצר (qatsar, to be short or cut short) appears as קֹצֶר (qotser, shortness), paired with רוּחַ (ruach, breath), in Exodus 6:9. Judges applies that shortening image to נַפְשׁוֹ (nafsho, his living soul), so both verses make pressure felt as the narrowing of life and breath.
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