What Does Judges 16:7 Mean?
And Samson said to her, If they bind me with seven moist cords that have never been dried, then I will become weak, and be like any other man.
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 Samson said unto her, If they bind me with seven green withs that were never dried, then shall I be weak, and be as another man.THE KEY
Samson makes the imagined bonds sound like his secret, turning the restraint he describes into cover for what he keeps hidden.
THE MEANING
A stated weakness can be part of a performance: Samson describes cords that would supposedly reduce him to an ordinary man, but his answer conceals the truth rather than revealing it. You encounter coercion and deception in the same sentence; naming the threat does not make his explanation truthful.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Naming the apparent weak point does not prove it is the real one; a disclosure can be cover.
THE ROOT
יַאַסְרֻנִי
yaʾasruni
GROWS FROM
אָסַר
To bind, tie, or confine.
“bind” in this verse is yaʾasruni. The word for binding belongs to the same root as words for a prisoner and imprisonment. The cords are more than objects in Samson’s explanation: they name a movement from being tied to being held captive.
ALSO GROWS
asīr: Prisoner; one who is bound.
אָסִיר
It shows how a physical binding can become a condition of captivity.
maʾsār: Imprisonment or confinement.
מַאְסָר
It extends the cords Samson names into the larger idea of being held.
וְחָלִיתִי
veḥālîtî
GROWS FROM
חלה
To become weak or sick.
The word translated “weak” also carries the sense of becoming sick or debilitated. It gives Samson’s claim a broader shade than simply losing muscle, while the verse leaves open whether his explanation is true.
ALSO GROWS
ḥoleh: A sick or ill person.
חוֹלֶה
It shows that the root describes a person brought into a weakened condition.
maḥalah: Sickness or illness.
מַחֲלָה
It links the weakness Samson names with a condition that overtakes the body.
THE PATTERN
Scripture makes restraint concrete through bodies put in bonds, while the bond’s meaning depends on who imposes it and why.
And he turned away from them and wept. Then he returned to them, spoke with them, and took Simeon from among them, and bound him before their eyes.And when he came to us, he lifted Paul's belt, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus says the Set-Apart Breath, so will the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man whose belt this is, and will hand him over into the hands of the nations.THE THREAD
The breath of the Lord LORD is upon me, for the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the bowed ones; he has sent me to bind up the broken of heart, to proclaim flowing freedom to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are chained.The phrase “them that are bound” uses the same root, אָסַר (ʾāsar), as Samson’s proposed cords. Isaiah places that binding beside liberty and an opened prison, widening the word from a bodily restraint to captivity that can be released.
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