What Does Judges 20:28 Mean?
And Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, stood before it in those days, saying, Shall I yet again go out to battle against the children of Benjamin, my brother, or shall I let go of the battle? And the LORD said, Go up, for tomorrow I will give them into your hand.
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 Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, stood before it in those days,) saying, Shall I yet again go out to battle against the children of Benjamin my brother, or shall I cease? And the LORD said, Go up; for to morrow I will deliver them into thine hand.THE KEY
The verse keeps “my brother” inside the command to fight, so the battle never makes kinship disappear.
THE MEANING
The question is whether to add another battle or stop; the answer is an unqualified “Go up.” The person on the other side is still named “my brother,” while the promised outcome is that he is given into the speaker’s hand. Kinship and violence remain in the same sentence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that calling someone an enemy erases kinship: even as the battle is commanded, the verse calls Benjamin “my brother.”
THE ROOT
הַאוֹסִיף עוֹד
ha’osif od
GROWS FROM
י־ס־ף
y-s-f
Add, increase, continue; here, “shall I add further?”
“yet again” in this verse is ha’osif od. The Hebrew phrases the choice as adding further: shall another battle be added, or should it stop? The root places the question at the threshold between continuing and ceasing.
ALSO GROWS
Yosef: He adds; may he add.
יוֹסֵף
The name comes from the same root, making addition the shared idea behind both the name and the question about continuing.
tosefet: Addition; supplement.
תּוֹסֶפֶת
This noun preserves the root’s sense of something added, clarifying the force of “yet again.”
אֶתְּנֶנּוּ
ettenenu
GROWS FROM
נ־ת־ן
n-t-n
Give, set, place; here, “I will give him/it.”
“give” in this verse is ettenenu. Under “deliver” is a verb of giving, so the promised outcome is concrete: Benjamin is handed into the speaker’s power. The wording leaves the violence visible even as it names the result as something given.
ALSO GROWS
natan: To give, set, or place.
נָתַן
This is the basic verb behind “deliver,” keeping the act of giving audible in the verse.
mattanah: A gift or present.
מַתָּנָה
This noun from the same root carries the idea of something given; here the object given over is an enemy in battle.
THE PATTERN
When the next movement is uncertain, the question is brought to God and the answer names a concrete next step.
And David asked of the LORD, saying, Shall I pursue after this troop? Shall I overtake them? And he answered him, Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them, and without fail snatch back all.Trembling and astonished, he said, Lord, what do you want me to do? And the Lord said to him, Stand up, and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do.THE THREAD
Then David asked of the LORD again. And the LORD answered him and said, Rise, go down to Keilah; for I will give the Philistines into your hand.The Hebrew root נתן (natan, give) underlies “deliver” in both verses: each speaks of giving an enemy into someone’s hand. The echo makes the outcome concrete, placing divine direction beside an explicit military result.
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