What Does Judges 21:5 Mean?
And the children of Israel said, Who is there among all the tribes of Israel that did not go up in the assembly to the LORD? For they had sworn a great oath concerning him who did not go up to the LORD at Mizpeh, saying, He shall surely die.
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 Israel said, Who is there among all the tribes of Israel that came not up with the congregation unto the LORD? For they had made a great oath concerning him that came not up to the LORD to Mizpeh, saying, He shall surely be put to death.THE KEY
A vow made in the LORD’s presence has turned nonattendance itself into a capital offense.
THE MEANING
You are looking at a community whose oath makes one person’s absence a death sentence. The verse holds the vow and its stated consequence side by side: the one who does not come is marked for death.
THE ROOT
שְׁבוּעָה
shevu'ah
GROWS FROM
שׁבע
To swear; the same consonants also form the Hebrew word for seven.
“sworn a great oath” in this verse is shevu'ah. The oath belongs to the same root as “seven,” a link made explicit in the name Beersheba. Here, that binding word governs a death sentence for the person who is absent.
ALSO GROWS
nishbaʿ: swore
נִשְׁבַּע
The act of swearing and the oath share a root, tying the spoken pledge to the obligation it creates.
shevaʿ: seven
שֶׁבַע
This shared root echoes in Beersheba, where the biblical text links an oath with seven.
מוֹת יוּמָת
môt yûmāt
GROWS FROM
מות
To die or be dead.
“die” in this verse is môt yûmāt. The Hebrew pairs two forms of the same root: literally, “dying, he shall be put to death.” English renders the emphasis as “surely,” while the doubled root makes death the unmistakable force of the oath.
ALSO GROWS
mût: to die
מוּת
This verb shares the root heard twice in the death sentence.
māvet: death
מָוֶת
The related noun names the consequence the oath assigns to the absent person.
THE PATTERN
A binding vow turns spoken words into obligations with consequences beyond the moment they are made.
If a man vows a vow to the LORD, or swears an oath to bind a binding upon his living soul, he does not pierce his word; he does according to all that goes out of his mouth.But I say to you, do not swear at all, neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God.Better that you not vow than that you vow and do not make it whole.THE THREAD
Therefore he called that place the well of the swearing, Beersheba, because there the two of them swore.The Hebrew for “sware,” נִשְׁבַּע (nishbaʿ, swore), shares the root שׁבע with שְׁבוּעָה (shevu’ah, oath) in Judges. Beersheba’s name carries the related wordplay of oath and seven, linking this binding word to the oath that makes absence fatal in Judges.
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