What Does Judges 20:47 Mean?

But six hundred men turned and fled to the wilderness, to the rock of Rimmon, and stood in the rock of Rimmon four months.

Judges 20:47 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

But six hundred men turned and fled to the wilderness unto the rock Rimmon, and abode in the rock Rimmon four months.

THE KEY

The Hebrew root behind “fled” also forms “refuge”: their flight is already a movement toward shelter.

THE MEANING

Here, survival means fleeing the violence and finding cover in the wilderness. The six hundred remain in the rock for four months; their shelter is real, while what comes next remains unresolved.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The belief that fleeing means having no refuge loosens here: their flight leads to a place where they can stay.

THE ROOT

וַיָּנֻסוּ

wayyānusū

GROWS FROM

נוס

nûs

to flee, escape, or take flight

“fled” in this verse is wayyānusū. English separates escape from shelter, but this Hebrew word family also gives a word for refuge. Their flight is more than movement away from danger: its root carries the possibility of reaching a place of escape.

ALSO GROWS

mānôs: refuge; a place of escape

מָנוֹס

This noun shares the root of “fled,” joining flight to the shelter it seeks.

hēnîs: to drive away or put to flight

הֵנִיס

This causative form shows the same root can name what sends someone fleeing, while this verse focuses on the escape itself.

THE PATTERN

When danger makes staying exposed, survival takes the form of reaching shelter and remaining there until the threat passes.

So David went away from there and slipped away into the cave of Adullam. When his brothers and all his father's house heard it, they went down there to him.

1 Samuel 22:1 · SDVLike the men at Rimmon, David reaches concealed shelter while danger presses around him.

To the chief Musician, Al-taschith, Michtam of David, when he fled from Saul in the cave. Bend toward me, O God, bend toward me, for in you my living soul takes shelter. In the shadow of your wings I take shelter until the ruin passes over.

Psalm 57:1 · SDVThe image of refuge holds through a period of calamity, as the men remain sheltered for four months.

Then let those in Judea flee to the mountains.

Matthew 24:16 · SDVFlight toward the mountains is presented as the way to get out of danger’s reach.

THE THREAD

The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my rock, in whom I shelter; my shield, and the horn of my deliverance, and my high place.

Psalm 18:2 · SDV

The six hundred take shelter in a literal ⁨סֶלַע⁩ (sela, rock), and the Psalm uses the same Hebrew word for the LORD as rock and fortress. The shared word holds physical cover and the language of protection together, while leaving the men’s danger unresolved.

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