What Does Judges 20:3 Mean?
Now the children of Benjamin heard that the children of Israel had gone up to Mizpeh. Then the children of Israel said, Tell us, how was this harm?
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 the children of Benjamin heard that the children of Israel were gone up to Mizpeh.) Then said the children of Israel, Tell us, how was this wickedness?THE KEY
The assembly does not leave evil as a label: it calls for the matter itself to be spoken.
THE MEANING
When harm enters the open, the gathering asks for an account of how it came to be. The wrong is named as evil, and the event itself is spoken before the people.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that condemning evil is the same as facing it. The question presses past the label to ask how the harm came to be.
THE ROOT
הָרָעָה
hā-rāʿāh
GROWS FROM
רעע
To be evil or to cause harm.
The word carries evil and harm together, naming something destructive rather than an abstract offense. A verb from the same root describes doing evil, linking the named wrong to the act that causes it.
ALSO GROWS
raʿ: Evil, bad, harmful.
רַע
The same root names the evil itself, showing that the assembly calls the event destructive wrong before asking for its details.
hēraʿ: To do evil or cause harm.
הֵרֵעַ
This verbal branch connects the word for wickedness to harmful action.
דַּבְּרוּ
dabberu
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak; the related noun names a word, matter, or affair.
“Tell” in this verse is dabberu. The request is to speak the matter before the gathering. Hebrew’s link between speech and affair makes this more than asking for a label: the event itself is to be put into words.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word, matter, or affair.
דָּבָר
The account is speech about an actual matter, not merely a reaction to a name for it.
dibber: Spoke or addressed.
דִּבֵּר
This verbal form shares the root and clarifies the assembly’s request: speak what happened.
THE PATTERN
Truth about communal wrongdoing moves from report to open examination before a judgment is trusted.
Then you shall search it out, and dig, and ask well; and, behold, if it is truth, and the thing set firm, that such abomination is done among you;The aligned one at the head of his own contention seems straight, but his neighbor comes and searches him out.But all things being exposed are made visible by the light, for whatever is made visible is light.THE THREAD
And the tribes of Israel sent men through all the tribe of Benjamin, saying, What harm is this that is done among you?This verse repeats הָרָעָה (hā-rāʿāh), the same Hebrew word for evil, and the same question about how it came to be among them. The request for an account in verse 3 becomes a direct question to Benjamin in verse 12.
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