What Does Judges 16:31 Mean?
Then his brothers and all his father's house came down, and lifted him, and brought him up, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol, in the grave of Manoah his father. And he judged Israel twenty years.
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
Then his brethren and all the house of his father came down, and took him, and brought him up, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the buryingplace of Manoah his father. And he judged Israel twenty years.THE KEY
Samson is buried between the same two places where his calling first began, so his story closes on the ground that first set him in motion.
THE MEANING
You are not reduced to your last scene: the people bound to you can carry you home, and the place where your movement begins can also hold its ending. Your work has a span, here named as twenty years, while your body is returned to the rest carried in your father’s name.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this verse undoes is that your final act is the whole meaning of your life: it names Samson’s burial, but also the twenty years he judged Israel.
THE ROOT
מָנוֹחַ
Manoah
GROWS FROM
נוח
To rest, settle, or come to rest.
“Manoah, his father’s name” in this verse is Manoah. Samson is buried in the place of a father whose name carries rest, turning the family burial place into an image of repose. The story that once showed Samson moved between these same places now lays him down there.
ALSO GROWS
nuach: To rest or settle.
נוּחַ
This root gives the name Manoah its association with rest, coloring the place where Samson is buried.
menuchah: Rest or a resting place.
מְנוּחָה
This branch makes the burial place resonate with the idea of rest carried in his father’s name.
וַיִּשְׁפֹּט
Wayyishpot
GROWS FROM
שפט
To judge, decide, or govern.
“Judged” in this verse is Wayyishpot. The Hebrew verb for judging and the noun for judgment grow from the same seed: the verse names an active work of ordering, not only a title. The twenty years give that work a defined span as the story closes.
ALSO GROWS
shofet: A judge, one who judges.
שֹׁפֵט
This is the same root in the person who carries out the judging.
mishpat: Judgment, justice, or a decision.
מִשְׁפָּט
This branch shows the work of judging and the judgment it produces as expressions of one root.
THE PATTERN
A closing scene can return to the ground where a life’s movement first began.
And the breath of the LORD began to stir him, beat by beat, in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.And he went on his stages from the south, even to Bethel, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Hai;Simon Peter said to them, "I am going out to work the sea." They said to him, "We also go with you." They went out and straightway stepped into the boat, and that night they grasped nothing.THE THREAD
He lays me down in green pastures; he leads me beside resting waters.The name מָנוֹחַ (Manoah, “rest”) is associated with נוח (nuach, “rest”), and the Hebrew phrase מֵי מְנֻחוֹת (mei menuchot, “waters of rest”) carries that same root. The shared seed connects Samson’s burial place, named through his father, with the Psalm’s image of being led into rest.
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