What Does Judges 20:5 Mean?
And the men of Gibeah rose against me, and circled the house all around me by night, and planned to strike me down; and they bent low my concubine, and she died.
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 the men of Gibeah rose against me, and beset the house round about upon me by night, and thought to have slain me: and my concubine have they forced, that she is dead.THE KEY
The Hebrew verb behind “forced” also names affliction, placing the woman’s violation and death in the same stark sentence.
THE MEANING
The verse makes violence visible as a sequence: a crowd surrounds a house at night, a man is targeted for killing, and a woman is sexually violated and dies. Her death stands beside the threat to him, holding both harms in view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Sexual assault is separate from lethal violence. This verse joins the violation directly to her death.
THE ROOT
עִנּוּ
ʿinnû
GROWS FROM
ענה
ʿ-n-h
To afflict, humble, or oppress; in sexual contexts, to violate.
“bent low” in this verse is ʿinnû. The root carries the force of affliction, and here it names sexual violation. That joins the assault to the woman’s suffering rather than leaving “forced” as a vague description of coercion.
ALSO GROWS
wayʿannehā: To afflict or violate her.
וַיְעַנֶּהָ
Genesis 34:2 uses this form of the same root for Shechem’s act against Dinah, showing the root’s sexual sense.
ʿŏnî: Affliction or misery.
עֳנִי
This related noun makes the root’s language of suffering explicit; in this verse, that suffering is inflicted through sexual violence.
וַיִּסֹּבּוּ
wayyissōbbû
GROWS FROM
סבב
s-b-b
To turn around, go about, or surround.
“circled” in this verse is wayyissōbbû. The Hebrew verb gives one image of surrounding, rendered in the KJV as “beset ... round about.” The house is not merely near danger; the attackers close around it.
ALSO GROWS
sāvîv: Around or on every side.
סָבִיב
This related word makes the enclosing space in the verse concrete.
sōvēv: Circling or surrounding.
סוֹבֵב
This form keeps the focus on the action of closing around the house.
THE PATTERN
Violence closes in on a vulnerable person, overruling the shelter and voice that should protect them.
But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, circled the house, both old and young, all the people from every end.But he would not hear and respond to her voice, and, gripping her harder than she, bent her low, and lay with her.And the whole city was moved, and the people ran together, and they seized Paul, and dragged him out of the temple, and straightway the doors were shut.THE THREAD
And when Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the land, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and bent her low.The verb עִנּוּ (ʿinnû, “they violated”) in Judges 20:5 and וַיְעַנֶּהָ (wayʿannehā, “he violated her”) here share the root ענה (ʿ-n-h), “to afflict or violate.” Across both verses, the root joins sexual violation to the suffering inflicted on the woman.
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