What Does Judges 16:25 Mean?
And it came to pass, when their hearts were good, that they said, Call for Samson, that he may make us laugh. And they called for Samson out of the prison house, and he made them laugh before them. And they stood him between the pillars.
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 their hearts were merry, that they said, Call for Samson, that he may make us sport. And they called for Samson out of the prison house; and he made them sport: and they set him between the pillars.THE KEY
The crowd’s laughter is the sound of a captive’s humiliation turned into entertainment.
THE MEANING
You see amusement become a form of power: the crowd calls for a captive and places him where they can make a spectacle of him. The verse holds Samson’s forced position between the pillars alongside the crowd’s pleasure in watching him perform.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that laughter makes cruelty harmless: here, the merriment depends on a captive’s humiliation.
THE ROOT
וַיַּעֲמִידוּ
wayyaʿamidu
GROWS FROM
עמד
To stand or take a position; in a causative form, to make someone stand.
“stood” in this verse is wayyaʿamidu. The same root names both the action of making Samson stand and the pillars around him. His forced position is framed by structures whose name also grows from the idea of standing.
ALSO GROWS
wayyaʿamidu: They made him stand or placed him.
וַיַּעֲמִידוּ
The captors control Samson’s position in the scene.
ʿammud: Pillar or column.
עַמּוּד
The pillars are literally the standing supports between which he is placed.
שָׂחַק
śāḥaq
GROWS FROM
שׂחק
To laugh, play, or make sport.
“make us sport” in this verse is śāḥaq. The crowd’s demand uses שׂחק, meaning play or laughter. When the verse describes Samson before them, it shifts to the distinct but nearly echoing root צחק; English repeats “sport” and conceals that sound-pattern.
ALSO GROWS
śeḥoq: Laughter.
שְׂחוֹק
It shows that the crowd’s entertainment is built from laughter.
leśaḥeq: To play or make sport.
לְשַׂחֵק
This branch carries the sense of the performance the crowd demands.
וַיִּצְחַק
wayyiṣḥaq
GROWS FROM
צחק
To laugh or play; the sense can shade toward mocking or derision.
“laugh” in this verse is wayyiṣḥaq. The verb for Samson’s action comes from צחק, a distinct root that sounds close to the crowd’s שׂחק. The same root gives the name Yitzchak, meaning “he laughs”: laughter may be joyful or cruel, and here the crowd’s control turns it into humiliation.
ALSO GROWS
Yiṣḥaq: He laughs; a name associated with laughter.
יִצְחָק
The name preserves laughter as a nature, while this scene shows how the surrounding relationship shapes its character.
meṣaḥeq: Playing or sporting.
מְצַחֵק
This form can describe playful intimacy, making the contrast with Samson’s coerced performance visible.
THE PATTERN
A crowd can turn someone’s suffering into public amusement, revealing the cruelty beneath its pleasure.
All who see me mock me; they open their lips, they shake the head.And now I am their song, yea, I am their saying.And when they had mocked him, they stripped the purple from him, and put his own clothes on him, and led him out to crucify him.THE THREAD
And Sarah said, God has made me laugh, and all who hear will laugh with me.Genesis uses the same root, צחק, for laughter shared with Sarah. Here that root stands beside a crowd’s coercive spectacle; the shared word reveals how laughter can hold joy or humiliation depending on who has agency.
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