What Does Judges 19:15 Mean?
And they turned aside there, to come in and to lodge in Gibeah; and when he came in, he sat down in the broad place of the city, for there was no man who gathered them into his house to lodge.
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 turned aside thither, to go in and to lodge in Gibeah: and when he went in, he sat him down in a street of the city: for there was no man that took them into his house to lodging.THE KEY
The Hebrew places them in a רְחֹב (rehov, broad public place), while no one gathers them into a house: open space without welcome is still exposure.
THE MEANING
A person can stand in the middle of a city and still be left without shelter. The verse holds the starkness of being present among people without anyone receiving you into a home. Here, the open street offers no refuge.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that arriving among people means you have been received: a city can leave someone exposed.
THE ROOT
מְאַסֵּף
me'assef
GROWS FROM
אסף
To gather, collect, or receive.
“gathered them into his house” in this verse is me'assef. The verb pictures gathering them into a house, not merely noticing them. Its root also names ingathering, so the absence here is an absence of anyone drawing exposed people into shelter.
ALSO GROWS
asaph: To gather or collect.
אָסַף
This is the verb behind ‘took them’; it makes receiving them an act of gathering them in.
asif: Ingathering; harvest.
אֲסִיף
Harvest gathers what is scattered into a store, echoing the movement from the street into shelter.
רְחֹב
rehov
GROWS FROM
רחב
To be wide or broad.
English ‘street’ sounds like a neutral location; the Hebrew word carries the sense of a broad, open place. That breadth sharpens the scene: they are exposed in public space, but no one draws them into shelter.
ALSO GROWS
rachav: To be wide or become broad.
רָחַב
The verb preserves the width carried by the word for street.
rochav: Breadth or width.
רֹחַב
This related noun makes the street’s openness audible in Hebrew, set against the missing welcome of a house.
THE PATTERN
A stranger’s need for shelter makes visible whether a community receives them.
And he said, Look now, my lords, turn aside, I pray you, into your servant's house, and lodge all night, and wash your feet, and rise early and go on your way. And they said, No, but we will lodge in the street all night.So love the sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.Do not let slip the opening of your home to strangers, for by it some have sheltered messengers without knowing it.THE THREAD
When my father and my mother let go of me, then the LORD gathers me in.The phrase ‘take me up’ uses the same Hebrew root, אסף (asaph, gather or receive), as ‘took them’ in Judges. Psalm 27 pictures the abandoned person being gathered in, giving the root’s missing action a clear voice.
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