What Does Judges 20:40 Mean?
But when the flame began to rise out of the city in a pillar of smoke, the Benjamites looked behind them, and look, the flame of the city went up to the heavens.
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
But when the flame began to arise up out of the city with a pillar of smoke, the Benjamites looked behind them, and, behold, the flame of the city ascended up to heaven.THE KEY
The signal is the moment the destruction behind them becomes impossible to miss.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you when a turn of attention reveals a cost unfolding outside your view. The rising smoke makes the city’s destruction visible, filling the sky with what had been hidden. The fire is not softened: the city is burning.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that the struggle you can see is the whole story.
THE ROOT
עָלָה
ʿālāh
GROWS FROM
עלה
To go up, rise, or ascend.
“went up to the heavens” in this verse is ʿālāh. The root marks both the signal beginning to rise and the city’s ascent into the sky. The same upward movement carries the scene from warning to the full sight of destruction.
ALSO GROWS
ʿōlāh: A burnt offering; literally, an offering that goes up.
עֹלָה
It shares the root’s upward movement, giving the rising flames an additional burnt-up resonance.
ʿăliyyāh: Ascent or going up.
עֲלִיָּה
It carries the same movement named twice in the verse: first the signal rises, then the city goes up.
מַשְׂאֵת
maśʾēt
GROWS FROM
נשא
To lift, carry, or bear.
The word rendered “flame” at the verse’s opening can also mean a raised signal or beacon. Its root joins lifting with carrying: the fire rises above the city and carries news of what is happening there.
ALSO GROWS
nāśāʾ: To lift, carry, or bear.
נָשָׂא
This verb names the action within the signal’s word family: something is lifted into view.
maśśāʾ: A load or burden; something carried.
מַשָּׂא
This noun shares the root’s sense of bearing, echoing how the raised signal carries news beyond the city.
THE PATTERN
Rising smoke makes a city’s hidden destruction visible to those who look toward it.
And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and saw, and look, the smoke of the land rose like the smoke of a furnace.And the kings of the earth, who sold themselves with her and feasted with her, shall weep and beat their breasts over her when they look upon the smoke of her burning.THE THREAD
And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and saw, and look, the smoke of the land rose like the smoke of a furnace.Both verses use עָשָׁן (ʿāšān), meaning “smoke,” for the rising sign of a city’s destruction. What was out of sight becomes visible in the column rising above the city.
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