What Does Judges 16:24 Mean?
And when the people saw him, they praised their god, for they said, Our god has given into our hand our enemy, the one who dried up our land and pierced many of us.
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 the people saw him, they praised their god: for they said, Our god hath delivered into our hands our enemy, and the destroyer of our country, which slew many of us.THE KEY
Under “delivered” is the Hebrew word for “give” or “place”: the Philistines frame Samson’s capture as their god placing him in their hands.
THE MEANING
You see a crowd look at a captured man and praise its god, calling his capture proof that power has been placed in their hands. Their words hold triumph beside injury: they name him as the enemy who devastated their land and killed many.
THE ROOT
נָתַן
natan
GROWS FROM
נתן
To give, set, or place.
“given” in this verse is natan. Under “delivered” is the ordinary act of giving or placing. That makes the Philistines’ praise a claim that their god has handed Samson over to their control.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: Gift or present.
מַתָּנָה
This noun from the same root gives a gift its sense as something given; here the people describe a captive placed in their hands.
ten: Give! the imperative form of the verb.
תֵּן
The command makes the root’s action plain: what is “delivered” is something given or placed into another’s possession.
הִלֵּל
hillel
GROWS FROM
הלל
To praise, acclaim, or boast.
“praised” in this verse is hillel. This praise is also a public boast: the crowd announces what it believes Samson’s capture proves. The root shows praise as an act of acclaim, while the words around it assign the victory to their god.
ALSO GROWS
tehillah: Praise or a song of praise.
תְּהִלָּה
The related noun names praise itself; here the crowd’s acclaim is a declaration about who they believe holds power.
hallelu-yah: Praise Yah.
הַלְלוּיָהּ
The same praise-root can direct acclaim to Yah; in this verse, the crowd directs it to its own god.
THE PATTERN
What a people sees becomes a claim about who gave the outcome.
And the LORD said to Gideon, The people who are with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel boast against me, saying, My own hand has delivered me.And Israel saw the great hand that the LORD did upon the Egyptians, and the people stood in awe of the LORD, and they leaned their weight on the LORD and on his servant Moses.And the people raised their voice, saying, "It is the voice of a god, and not of a man."THE THREAD
And the LORD said to Gideon, The people who are with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel boast against me, saying, My own hand has delivered me.The Philistines say their god has given Samson into their hands; Judges 7:2 uses the same giving-into-hands construction. That shared wording opens a question running through Judges: when a victory is visible, who is said to have placed it in human hands?
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