What Does Judges 21:23 Mean?
And the children of Benjamin did so, and took wives for themselves according to their count, from the ones who whirled, whom they snatched; and they went and returned to their inheritance, and built the cities and settled in them.
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 children of Benjamin did so, and took them wives, according to their number, of them that danced, whom they caught: and they went and returned unto their inheritance, and repaired the cities, and dwelt in them.THE KEY
Benjamin returns to inherited land in a sentence that also names women seized by force, leaving restoration and dispossession joined.
THE MEANING
The verse places Benjamin’s return, rebuilding, and settled dwelling beside the seizure of women for wives. The community’s life continues, while the women remain unnamed and their voices are absent from the account. Restoration and coercion occupy the same line; one does not cancel the other.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that restoring a community’s place and continuity settles the whole account: the women’s seizure remains within the restoration the verse records.
THE ROOT
גָּזָלוּ
gazalu
GROWS FROM
גזל
To rob, seize by force, or take violently.
Under “caught” is the forceful sense of גזל: to seize as spoil. That meaning stays present as the women are called wives and the men return to their inheritance, placing one group’s continuity beside another’s dispossession.
ALSO GROWS
gazal: To rob or seize by force.
גָּזַל
This verb makes the force in the taking explicit.
gezelah: Robbery or property taken by force.
גְּזֵלָה
This related noun carries the sense of a taking that leaves a real claim behind.
נַחֲלָה
naḥalah
GROWS FROM
נחל
To inherit or take possession; an inherited holding.
The root ties Benjamin’s land to inherited possession and continuity. That return to what is held as an inheritance follows directly after the forcible taking of women, sharpening the contrast the verse leaves unresolved.
ALSO GROWS
naḥal: To inherit or take possession.
נָחַל
The verb describes receiving or holding a possession, the movement behind Benjamin’s return to its land.
naḥalah: An inheritance or inherited possession.
נַחֲלָה
The noun names the land as Benjamin’s continuing share, beside the women’s unchosen place in that continuity.
THE PATTERN
The security or advantage of those with power can rest on costs imposed on people whose consent or claim is pushed aside.
And Sarai said to Abram, Behold, the LORD has held me shut from bearing. Go in, I pray you, to my handmaid. Perhaps I may be built through her. And Abram heard and responded to the voice of Sarai.And it shall be, when their fathers or their brothers come to us to strive, that we will say to them, Show them favor for our sake, because we did not take for each man his wife in the war, for you did not give to them at this time, so that you would be guilty.Look, the wages of the workers who mowed your fields, stripped away by your fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have gone into the ears of the LORD of hosts.THE THREAD
Those who hate me without cause outnumber the hairs of my head. Those who would cut me off, my enemies falsely, are mighty. Then I make whole what I did not tear away.Both passages turn on גזל (gazal), “to rob or seize by force.” Here women are seized; the psalm names the burden of restoring what the speaker never robbed, giving language to dispossession that Judges does not let the women voice.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us