What Does Judges 6:24 Mean?
Then Gideon built an altar there to the LORD, and called it Jehovahshalom, the LORD is wholeness. To this day it is still in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
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
Then Gideon built an altar there unto the LORD, and called it Jehovah-shalom: unto this day it is yet in Ophrah of the Abi-ezrites.THE KEY
The altar names the LORD as wholeness itself, placing shalom where fear had just expected death.
THE MEANING
Here, wholeness is not merely a calm feeling: the LORD is named as wholeness in the very place where fear has been answered. The name marks a meeting with God as something that holds even while danger still feels near.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Wholeness must wait until fear is gone and life feels safe.
THE ROOT
שָׁלוֹם
shalom
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
To be whole, complete, or sound.
“Jehovahshalom, the LORD is wholeness” in this verse is shalom. The root gathers peace into the larger idea of wholeness and completeness. The altar’s name presents the LORD as that wholeness, not only as a source of quiet after danger passes.
ALSO GROWS
shalem: Whole, complete, sound.
שָׁלֵם
This branch makes clear that shalom names a state of wholeness, not just the absence of conflict.
shillem: To repay, make good, or restore what is due.
שִׁלֵּם
This branch links wholeness with something made complete or restored.
shelamim: Well-being offerings, often called peace offerings.
שְׁלָמִים
This branch brings the language of wholeness into the altar’s own field of meaning.
THE PATTERN
Wholeness is given in God’s presence and meets fear before life feels undisturbed.
And the LORD said to him, Wholeness be to you. Do not fear. You will not die.The LORD lift up his face upon you, and give you wholeness.Wholeness I leave with you; my wholeness I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be stirred, and do not let it shrink.THE THREAD
And the LORD said to him, Wholeness be to you. Do not fear. You will not die.The preceding line gives the word shalom where fear has been named; this verse carries that same Hebrew word into the altar’s name. What sounds like a label becomes a claim about the LORD as the wholeness spoken into fear.
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