What Does Judges 6:13 Mean?
And Gideon said to him, Oh my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this found us? And where are all his wonders which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt? But now the LORD has let go of us, and has given us into the hands of the Midianites.
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 Gideon said unto him, Oh my Lord, if the LORD be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt? but now the LORD hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.THE KEY
The remembered exodus makes the present placement in Midian’s hand a question about why release has not ended constriction.
THE MEANING
The verse gives voice to the collision between the possibility that the LORD is with you and suffering that looks like abandonment. Remembered deliverance does not erase what has found you; it makes the question of presence more exact.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that remembered deliverance makes present pain unaskable; here the memory itself gives the question its force.
THE ROOT
מְצָאַתְנוּ
metsa’atnu
GROWS FROM
מצא
matsa
To find, meet, or encounter.
“befallen” in this verse is metsa’atnu. The Hebrew asks why all this has found the people, making the affliction something that has met or overtaken them. The verb leaves the cause unresolved; it preserves the question instead of explaining away the suffering.
ALSO GROWS
matsa: To find or encounter.
מָצָא
This is the verb in the question: all this has found them.
nimtsa: To be found or be present.
נִמְצָא
The same root can describe what is present or encountered, deepening the sense of events that have met the speaker.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
צרר
tsarar
To bind or press in; the related צַר (tsar) means narrow or constricted.
“Egypt” in this verse is Mitzrayim. Mitzrayim carries the narrowness of צַר (tsar, “narrow”), with the dual ending -ַיִם (-ayim). The remembered exodus is a movement up from constriction, so Midian’s present grip feels like the return of the narrow condition.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: Narrow, tight, constricted.
צַר
This is the narrowness carried in the remembered name Mitzrayim.
metsar: A strait, narrow place, or distress.
מֵצַר
This related word expresses distress as a constricted place, echoing the pressure Gideon describes.
וַיִּתְּנֵנוּ
vayittenenu
GROWS FROM
נתן
natan
To give, set, or place.
The KJV’s “delivered us into the hands” carries the concrete sense of giving or placing the people in Midian’s grasp. The word keeps the speaker’s troubling claim intact: the LORD has set them there, and the verse does not explain why.
ALSO GROWS
natan: To give, set, or place.
נָתַן
This is the verb used for placing the people into the hands of Midian.
mattanah: A gift, something given.
מַתָּנָה
This noun shares the root’s sense of giving, showing how broadly the root carries the act of placing or handing over.
THE PATTERN
A present wound and remembered deliverance can be named together in a question addressed to God.
Does God forget to favor? Does he shut his compassions in the burning of his anger? Selah.O LORD, how long shall I cry out, and you will not hear and respond? I cry out to you of violence, and you will not deliver.At once the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I lean my weight on you. Help where I cannot lean.THE THREAD
For whoever finds me finds life, and draws favor out of the LORD.Gideon’s מְצָאַתְנוּ (metsa’atnu, “has found us”) comes from מָצָא (matsa, “find, encounter”); Proverbs uses that same verb for finding wisdom and life. The shared root widens “finding” beyond affliction without turning Gideon’s suffering into a hidden good.
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