What Does Judges 19:22 Mean?
Now as they were making their hearts good, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of worthlessness, circled the house, and pounded at the door, and spoke to the master of the house, the old man, saying, Bring out the man who came into your house, that we may know him.
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
Now as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about, and beat at the door, and spake to the master of the house, the old man, saying, Bring forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know him.THE KEY
Here, “know him” is relational language turned into a weapon: the mob is demanding sexual access by force.
THE MEANING
The verse exposes a crowd turning a house into a siege and a person into a target. Its demand to “know” the guest is a demand for sexual access; the language of intimacy does not soften its coercion. The threat is bodily and violent.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the claim that a demand for access becomes intimacy when called “knowing”; the mob’s words describe coercion.
THE ROOT
וְנֵדָעֶנּוּ
veneda'ennu
GROWS FROM
ידע
yada
To know, recognize, or become acquainted with through encounter
“know him” in this verse is veneda'ennu. This verb’s family links knowing with recognition and acquaintance. Here the encounter is imposed, turning language associated with knowing a person into a threat of sexual violence.
ALSO GROWS
da'at: Knowledge, understanding
דַּעַת
This noun shares the root of “know,” showing how the word family holds knowing and knowledge together; here, the mob makes that knowing coercive.
moda: Acquaintance, kinsman
מֹדָע
This branch can name someone known through relationship, sharpening the contrast with the mob’s forced access to the guest.
THE PATTERN
When sexual access is taken by force, intimate language cannot erase the violence.
And they called to Lot and said to him, Where are the men who came in to you this night? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.But if a man finds the pledged young woman in the field, and the man grips her and lies down with her, then the man alone who lay down with her shall die.But he would not hear and respond to her voice, and, gripping her harder than she, bent her low, and lay with her.THE THREAD
And they called to Lot and said to him, Where are the men who came in to you this night? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.Genesis uses the same root for a crowd’s demand to “know” its visitors. The parallel makes clear that the word here carries a threat of sexual violence, not mutual recognition.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us