What Does Judges 18:13 Mean?
And they crossed over from there to mount Ephraim, and came to the house of Micah.
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 they passed thence unto mount Ephraim, and came unto the house of Micah.THE KEY
Their destination is Micah’s house, מִיכָה (Mikhah, “Who is like YHWH?”), so the arrival itself carries a question of likeness.
THE MEANING
The verse holds travel and arrival together: you cross away from one place and reach another person’s home. Micah’s name means “Who is like YHWH?”, bringing the question of likeness into view at the destination.
THE ROOT
וַיַּעַבְרוּ
vayyaʿavru
GROWS FROM
עבר
ʿ-b-r
To cross over or pass across.
“crossed over from there” in this verse is vayyaʿavru. The verb translated “passed” carries the sense of crossing a threshold. Paired with the arrival that follows, it makes the route a movement from one place into another.
ALSO GROWS
ʿever: Beyond; across.
עֵבֶר
The sense of crossing over makes “passed thence” more than undirected travel: it marks leaving one side for another.
maʿavar: A passage or crossing.
מַעֲבָר
This related word names the passage itself, bringing out the threshold built into the verse’s first verb.
וַיָּבֹאוּ
vayyavo’u
GROWS FROM
בוא
b-w-ʾ
To come, arrive, or enter.
“came” in this verse is vayyavo’u. The second verb completes the movement: the crossing has a destination. Here the travelers come as far as a particular home, where the journey meets another person’s settled world.
ALSO GROWS
mavo: Entrance; access.
מָבוֹא
This branch connects coming to the place one enters, sharpening the sense of arrival at a household.
bi’ah: Coming; entry.
בִּיאָה
This noun preserves the movement inside arrival: reaching a place is also entering into it.
THE PATTERN
Crossing carries movement across a threshold, while arrival shows what lies on the other side.
And Abram crossed through the land to the place of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. The Canaanite was then in the land.And the priests who lifted the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood steady on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites crossed over on dry ground, until all the people had finished crossing over Jordan.Truly, truly, I say to you, Whoever hears and responds to my word, and leans his full weight on him who sent me, has the life of the ages, and does not come under the judgment, but has crossed over from death into life.THE THREAD
And Abram crossed through the land to the place of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. The Canaanite was then in the land.“Passed” in Genesis comes from the same Hebrew root עבר (ʿ-b-r) as “passed” here. Genesis also joins crossing to a destination, opening the movement in Judges, from “thence” to Micah’s house, as a passage that arrives at a threshold.
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