What Does Judges 21:2 Mean?
And the people came to the house of God, and sat there until evening before God, and lifted up their voices, and wept a great weeping.
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 people came to the house of God, and abode there till even before God, and lifted up their voices, and wept sore;THE KEY
At Bethel, the house of God, the Hebrew repeats בכה, “they wept” with “weeping,” making their grief the sound they raise before God.
THE MEANING
The people stay before God until evening, and their shared grief comes into the open as raised voices and tears. The verse speaks now wherever sorrow is shared: God’s presence and unhidden grief occupy the same moment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that grief in God’s presence must already be resolved is undone here: the people come before God and still weep aloud.
THE ROOT
וַיִּבְכּוּ בְּכִי
wayyivku bekhi
GROWS FROM
בכה
bakah: to weep, lament
The verb wayyivku, “they wept,” is followed by the same root as a noun, bekhi, “weeping”: the Hebrew says they “wept a great weeping.” “Sore” preserves the intensity, while the repeated root makes the communal lament audible in the language itself.
ALSO GROWS
bekhi: weeping, lamentation
בְּכִי
This noun follows the verb in the verse, echoing its root and showing how the Hebrew intensifies the act of weeping.
Bochim: weepers
בֹּכִים
In Judges 2:5, this root names a place by the people who weep there, so lament becomes part of the place’s name.
לִפְנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים
lifnei ha’Elohim
GROWS FROM
פנה
panah: to turn or face toward
The Hebrew phrase rendered “before God” is built from panim, “face” or “presence.” Their grief takes place face-to-face with God, not at a distance from that presence.
ALSO GROWS
panim: face, front, presence
פָּנִים
This is the face-word behind lifnei, “before,” giving the scene a sense of direct presence.
panah: to turn, face toward
פָּנָה
The root’s sense of facing toward makes their lament a direct encounter before God.
THE PATTERN
In God’s presence, grief can become a shared voice and a sustained lament.
And the children of Israel went up and wept before the LORD until evening, and asked counsel of the LORD, saying, Shall I go up again to battle against the children of Benjamin, my brother? And the LORD said, Go up against him.Turn aside from me, all you workers of crookedness; for the LORD hears the voice of my weeping.In the days of his flesh, he brought near prayers and clinging pleas, with a strong outcry and tears, to the one able to deliver him out of death, and he was heard because of his awe.THE THREAD
And she was bitter in her living soul, and she prayed to the LORD, and wept hard.The Hebrew verb translated “wept sore” in both verses comes from בכה (bakah), the same root repeated here as a verb and noun. Hannah’s tears accompany prayer, echoing the lament raised before God in Judges.
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