What Does Judges 16:22 Mean?
But the hair of his head began to sprout again, after it had been shaved.
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
Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaven.THE KEY
The word for “grow” is צָמַח (tsamach): the same root that names a sprout or branch, life beginning to emerge where it was cut down.
THE MEANING
You can see the first sign of return before you see restoration itself: the hair begins to sprout again after it is cut away. The verse holds the moment of beginning, when what was removed has not yet fully returned.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being cut down does not always mean that growth is finished.
THE ROOT
צמח
tsamach
GROWS FROM
צמח
To sprout, grow, or put forth.
The word translated “grow” shares its root with the noun for a sprout or branch: the verb and the emerging shoot carry the same seed. The verse describes the first movement of regrowth after shaving, not the instant return of what was lost.
ALSO GROWS
tsamach: To sprout or grow.
צָמַח
This is the verb behind the hair beginning to grow; it names regrowth as an emerging process.
tsemach: A sprout, shoot, or branch.
צֶמַח
Zechariah uses this same-root word for “the Branch,” making the image of a new shoot part of the word’s wider scriptural reach.
THE PATTERN
Growth can begin beneath notice before its fullness is visible.
And out of the ground the LORD God caused to sprout every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowing good and evil.For as the rain comes down, and the snow from the heavens, and does not return there, but drenches the earth, and makes it bear and sprout, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater.and he sleeps and wakes night and day, and the seed sprouts and stretches up, and he does not know how.THE THREAD
And speak to him, saying, Thus speaks the LORD of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is the Sprout; and he shall sprout up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the LORD.“The BRANCH” is צֶמַח (tsemach), from the same root as the verb for Samson’s hair beginning to grow. In both verses the language holds a sprout and its growing together: what emerges is already named by the root of growth.
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