What Does Judges 18:20 Mean?
And the priest's heart was glad, and he took the ephod, and the teraphim, and the hewn image, and came into the midst of the people.
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 the priest’s heart was glad, and he took the ephod, and the teraphim, and the graven image, and went in the midst of the people.THE KEY
The Hebrew describes the priest’s heart as “pleased” with a root that also means “do well,” even as he takes the carved image and joins a new allegiance.
THE MEANING
The priest feels glad as he takes the ephod, the teraphim, and the carved image into the crowd. The verse speaks now wherever satisfaction makes a new allegiance feel settled: gladness can accompany a choice without proving its direction is sound.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
If I feel pleased with my choice, that feeling proves the choice is sound.
THE ROOT
וַיִּיטַב
vayyitav
GROWS FROM
יטב
To be good or pleasing; in a related verb form, to do well.
“glad” in this verse is vayyitav. The Hebrew says, closely, that the priest’s heart “became pleasing,” using יטב, a root that also describes doing well. That shared word holds his inward gladness beside his outward taking: the feeling is clear, but the verse puts it beside the objects he carries and the company he joins.
ALSO GROWS
yitav: It will be good or pleasing.
יֵיטַב
This form expresses a state of being pleasing, close to how the verse describes the priest’s heart.
teitiv: You do well.
תֵּיטִיב
Genesis 4:7 uses this form of the same root for action, bringing “doing well” alongside the priest’s inward gladness.
THE PATTERN
Inward approval can accompany a choice whose direction is compromised.
In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did what was straight in his own eyes.There is a way straight before a man, but its latter end is the ways of death.They will drive you out of the gatherings. But an hour is coming when whoever kills you will think they are bringing service near to God.THE THREAD
If you do well, will you not be lifted up? And if you do not do well, falling short crouches at the door. Its reaching is toward you, and you shall rule over it.Genesis uses יטב (y-t-b, “do well”) for action; Judges uses the same root for the priest’s heart being pleased. That shared root places inward gladness beside outward action and sharpens the tension in this scene.
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