What Does Judges 3:6 Mean?
And they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and served their gods.
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 they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, and served their gods.THE KEY
The verb rendered “served” also means “worked”: devotion to these gods reaches beyond ritual into a life put in their service.
THE MEANING
The verse places relationship and allegiance side by side: daughters and sons are joined across households, and the next clause says they serve their gods. The verb reaches beyond ritual into work and service, showing the direction of everyday life. It speaks now about how the bonds a life forms can shape what that life serves.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a close bond cannot affect what you serve.
THE ROOT
וַיַּעַבְדוּ
vayyaʿavdu
GROWS FROM
עבד
To work, labor, or serve.
The same root names both labor and service, including service directed toward a deity. The verse lets “served their gods” carry the sense of a life’s work and allegiance, not only a ritual act.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāvad: To work or serve.
עָבַד
The verb in this verse comes from this root, joining service to the work of a life.
ʿeved: A servant or worker.
עֶבֶד
This branch shows the relationship implied by service: the one who serves belongs to the service of a master.
ʿavodah: Work, service, or worshipful service.
עֲבוֹדָה
It keeps labor and religious service in the same root-family, illuminating the verse’s movement from household ties to serving gods.
THE PATTERN
The bonds a person forms can redirect the allegiance expressed in whom they serve.
For they will turn your son aside from walking after me, so that he serves other gods. Then the burning of the LORD's anger will flare against you and wipe you out swiftly.No one can serve two masters, for he will either hate the one and love the other, or he will hold fast to one and look down on the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.THE THREAD
And if it seems evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you settle. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.Joshua uses the same עבד root for serving the LORD and serving other gods, setting the direction of service plainly before the reader. Its mention of a house serving together opens the household connection in Judges further.
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