What Does Judges 6:6 Mean?
And Israel was emptied exceedingly because of the Midianites, and the children of Israel cried out to the LORD.
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 Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites; and the children of Israel cried unto the LORD.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “impoverished” pictures Israel brought low, and from that low place the people give their distress a voice in a cry to the LORD.
THE MEANING
Midian’s pressure brings Israel very low, and the people cry to the LORD. Their material depletion and their appeal stand together: oppression has diminished them, but their cry is still directed toward God.
THE ROOT
וַיִּדַּל
wayyiddal
GROWS FROM
דלל
dalal
To hang low, become weak, or be brought low.
The word translated “impoverished” carries the image of Israel brought low, not merely lacking possessions. The root connects material deprivation with a lowered condition, giving the people’s cry a voice from the depths of that pressure.
ALSO GROWS
dal: Poor, low, or weak.
דַל
This related word makes the lowered condition in “impoverished” more visible.
dallut: Poverty or a low condition.
דַּלּוּת
It names the state that the verb describes: Israel is brought into a condition of deprivation.
וַיִּזְעֲקוּ
wayyiz'aqu
GROWS FROM
זעק
za'aq
To cry out in distress or call for help.
“cried out” in this verse is wayyiz'aqu. This is an outcry rising from distress, not simply a mention of emotion. Exodus uses the same root for Israel’s cry under bondage, where the cry comes up before God; here the same word turns their impoverishment into an appeal addressed to the LORD.
ALSO GROWS
za'aq: To cry out or call for help.
זָעַק
The verb names the people’s act of voicing distress.
ze'aqah: An outcry or cry for help.
זְעָקָה
This related noun shows the cry as something that can be heard and answered.
THE PATTERN
Across Scripture, the cry of people pressed down by oppression is directed toward God and enters his hearing.
And in those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel groaned from the labor, and they cried out, and their outcry rose up to God from the labor.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
And in those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel groaned from the labor, and they cried out, and their outcry rose up to God from the labor.Exodus 2:23 uses the same זעק (za’aq, “cry out”) root for Israel’s outcry under bondage. Judges repeats that root as Israel is brought low under Midian, linking the two cries as appeals rising from oppression.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us