What Does Judges 2:3 Mean?
Therefore I also said, I will not drive them out from your faces. But they shall be thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you.
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
Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you.THE KEY
What stays in your midst can wound at the edges and capture at the center.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now with a severe image: what remains in your midst presses like thorns at your sides, while their gods become a snare to you. The danger is both the pain of what stays near and the capture of what claims allegiance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that whatever remains in the background is harmless: proximity can press like a thorn, and allegiance can become a snare.
THE ROOT
מוֹקֵשׁ
mōqēsh
GROWS FROM
יקשׁ
y-q-sh
To ensnare or set a trap.
“snare” in this verse is mōqēsh. The root names a mechanism of capture: the danger is not only a painful presence but a pull that catches you in what it serves. The same root moves between the act of ensnaring and the trap itself, placing the threat in entanglement.
ALSO GROWS
yāqash: To set a snare; to ensnare.
יָקַשׁ
The verb reveals the action beneath the noun: a snare catches.
mōqēsh: Snare, trap.
מוֹקֵשׁ
This is the noun used for the gods’ effect: their pull catches the person who comes under their service.
אֲגָרֵשׁ
’agārēsh
GROWS FROM
גרשׁ
g-r-sh
To drive out, expel, or send away.
“drive them out” in this verse is ’agārēsh. This root’s family includes a word for a divorced woman, one sent away; expelling and putting away share its language. Here, what is not sent away stays in your space as thorned pressure alongside the snare.
ALSO GROWS
vaygarēsh: And he drove out or expelled.
וַיְגָרֶשׁ
This verbal form shows the root as an act of forcing something out of an occupied space.
gerushah: A divorced woman; one sent away.
גְּרוּשָׁה
The related form gives expulsion a relational shade: the root also speaks of being put away.
THE PATTERN
What captures a person is often an allegiance or desire that draws them into the trap.
They shall not settle in your land, lest they make you miss the mark against me, for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.They served their idols, and these became a snare to them.But those who want to be rich fall into testing and a snare, and into many mindless and harmful cravings, which sink people into ruin and the losing of the way.THE THREAD
They shall not settle in your land, lest they make you miss the mark against me, for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.Both verses use מוֹקֵשׁ (mōqēsh, snare), the same Hebrew noun. Exodus names service to other gods as the mechanism of capture, and Judges shows the snare within reach through what remains in your midst.
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