What Does Judges 20:7 Mean?
Look, you are all children of Israel; give here your word and your counsel.
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
Behold, ye are all children of Israel; give here your advice and counsel.THE KEY
It links belonging to participation: the whole people are asked to bring a word about the matter and counsel for judgment.
THE MEANING
The reader is addressed as part of a people whose shared identity makes each voice part of the response. The verse joins a word about the matter to counsel that weighs it, so speech and judgment meet in the same gathering.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that group judgment belongs only to leaders: the whole people are addressed as participants whose counsel is called for.
THE ROOT
דָּבָר
davar
GROWS FROM
ד־ב־ר
d-b-r
To speak; word, matter, or thing
The term דָּבָר (davar, “word” or “matter”) holds utterance and the matter spoken of together. Placed beside עֵצָה (etsah, “counsel”), it joins speech about what is before the people with deliberate judgment.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: He spoke
דִּבֵּר
This spoken form shows that the requested advice is an utterance offered in the gathering.
devarim: Words; matters
דְּבָרִים
The same word family holds speech and the matters being considered together.
עֵצָה
etsah
GROWS FROM
י־ע־ץ
y-ʿ-ts
To advise or give counsel
The noun עֵצָה (etsah, “counsel”) shares its root with יָעַץ (ya’ats, “to advise”) and יוֹעֵץ (yo’ets, “counselor”). The sentence frames counsel as an act the whole assembly can take part in, rather than a verdict reserved for one voice.
ALSO GROWS
ya'ats: To advise; give counsel
יָעַץ
The verb names the act carried by the counsel the people are asked to offer.
yo'ets: Counselor; adviser
יוֹעֵץ
This form names the person who gives counsel, while the verse widens that role to the whole assembly.
THE PATTERN
A community’s judgment takes shape when many voices bring words and counsel into shared discernment.
Without counsel, plans are broken, but in a multitude of counselors they stand.For it seemed good to the Set-Apart Breath, and to us, to lay upon you no greater weight than these pressing things.Let the prophets speak, two or three, and let the others judge it.THE THREAD
Counsel in the heart of a man is like deep waters, but a man of understanding draws it up.The same Hebrew word עֵצָה (etsah, “counsel”) appears in both verses. Judges calls counsel into the shared space; Proverbs pictures it as deep water that understanding draws out, waiting within a person to be expressed.
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