What Does Judges 21:19 Mean?
Then they said, Behold, there is a feast of the LORD in Shiloh from year to year, in a place which is on the north side of Bethel, on the east side of the raised road that goes up from Bethel to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah.
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
Then they said, Behold, there is a feast of the LORD in Shiloh yearly in a place which is on the north side of Beth-el, on the east side of the highway that goeth up from Beth-el to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah.THE KEY
The annual feast is mapped so precisely that the sacred gathering becomes a route to the women the next scene seizes.
THE MEANING
A sacred gathering can be mapped with enough precision to make those who attend reachable. The next line turns this annual feast into cover for men to seize the daughters who come out to dance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that a holy setting guarantees harmless actions dissolves here: the LORD’s feast becomes the gathering place for a plan to abduct women.
THE ROOT
חַג
chag
GROWS FROM
ח־ג־ג
To keep a pilgrimage festival; to celebrate.
The verse names a recurring festival and marks it as yearly, making the feast a return to a shared gathering place. The root links the occasion with the act of celebrating it, so the ritual calendar makes the gathering at Shiloh predictable.
ALSO GROWS
chagag: To celebrate or keep a pilgrimage festival.
חָגַג
The verb names the act of marking the feast; the verse names the recurring occasion.
chag ha-qatsir: Feast of Harvest.
חַג הַקָּצִיר
This biblical feast uses the same word, חַג (chag), for a scheduled communal gathering.
מְסִלָּה
mesillah
GROWS FROM
ס־ל־ל
To raise or cast up.
“raised road” in this verse is mesillah. English “highway” sounds like a neutral road label, while מְסִלָּה (mesillah) belongs to a root meaning to raise or cast up. The same root names a siege mound, so built routes and built approaches share a material logic of access; here, the detailed directions fix the path to the gathering.
ALSO GROWS
salal: To raise or cast up.
סָלַל
The verb carries the root’s physical sense of building a way through terrain.
solelah: A siege mound or assault ramp.
סֹלְלָה
This is another raised approach from the same root, sharpening how the verse’s precise road directions make the gathering accessible.
THE PATTERN
An annual feast turns worship into a recurring journey to a predictable gathering place.
Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me.And this man went up out of his city yearly to bow down and to sacrifice to the LORD of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the priests of the LORD, were there.And his parents went to Jerusalem every year for the feast of the Passover.THE THREAD
And see, and behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to whirl in dances, then come out from the vineyards, and snatch for yourselves each man his wife from the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.Verse 19 locates the yearly feast; the next verse tells the men to wait in the vineyards and seize the daughters who come out to dance. The directions make the gathering’s schedule and location part of the plan for taking them.
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