What Does Judges 19:4 Mean?
And his father-in-law, the young woman's father, held him fast; and he settled with him three days. So they did eat and drink, and lodged there.
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 his father in law, the damsel’s father, retained him; and he abode with him three days: so they did eat and drink, and lodged there.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “retained” also means “hold fast,” so this welcome already carries the force of keeping someone there.
THE MEANING
Welcome can hold a person in place: the father-in-law keeps him under his roof through three days of eating, drinking, and lodging. The Hebrew verb behind “retained” carries the sense of holding fast, pressing, or strengthening, so the hospitality has insistence as well as warmth. The verse leaves care and pressure close together.
THE ROOT
וַיַּחֲזֶק־בּוֹ
wayyaḥăzeq-bô
GROWS FROM
חזק
ḥ-z-q
Be strong; hold fast; strengthen or urge firmly.
“held him fast” in this verse is wayyaḥăzeq-bô. Behind “retained” is חזק (ḥazaq, “hold fast; strengthen”): the stay is held open, not merely allowed to happen. The same root can press a traveler toward a meal or describe someone strengthening himself, so Hebrew keeps firmness and hospitality in one word-family while leaving the feeling of the hold to the scene.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāzaq: Be strong; grow firm.
חָזַק
The root joins strength with holding fast, giving “retained” a sense of active insistence.
vattachazeq: She urged or constrained.
וַתַּחֲזֶק
In 2 Kings 4:8 the same root describes a woman pressing Elisha to eat, bringing hospitality and insistence together.
wayyitchazzeq: He strengthened himself.
וַיִּתְחַזֵּק
In 1 Samuel 30:6 the same root describes David finding strength, showing that its force can steady someone as well as hold someone in place.
THE PATTERN
The same force of firmness can press someone to remain or make someone steady under strain.
And it fell on a day that Elisha passed on to Shunem, where there was a great woman, and she held him fast to eat bread. And so it was, that as often as he passed by, he turned aside there to eat bread.And David was greatly pressed into a narrow place, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the living soul of all the people had turned bitter, each man over his sons and over his daughters; but David took firm hold of himself in the LORD his God.But the God of all favor, who called you into his weight of the ages in the Anointed One, after you have suffered for a little while, will himself mend you, steady you, strengthen you, and lay your foundation.THE THREAD
And it fell on a day that Elisha passed on to Shunem, where there was a great woman, and she held him fast to eat bread. And so it was, that as often as he passed by, he turned aside there to eat bread.The verbs translated “retained” here and “constrained” there both come from חזק (ḥazaq, “hold fast; strengthen”). The shared root shows how keeping a guest through food can carry insistence inside the welcome; here, that insistence lasts three days.
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