What Does Judges 7:13 Mean?
And when Gideon was come, behold, there was a man who told a dream to his companion, and said, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and, lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian, and came to a tent, and struck it so that it fell, and turned it over, that the tent lay along.
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 when Gideon was come, behold, there was a man that told a dream unto his fellow, and said, Behold, I dreamed a dream, and, lo, a cake of barley bread tumbled into the host of Midian, and came unto a tent, and smote it that it fell, and overturned it, that the tent lay along.THE KEY
The dream makes the army’s collapse begin as a barley loaf’s tumble: the same Hebrew root carries both turning and overturning.
THE MEANING
You watch a small, ordinary thing enter the center of a force that seems secure and turn its shelter over. The dream gives fear a shape in which the power that looms over you is already falling.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
What stands over me is too strong to be overturned by anything small.
THE ROOT
מִתְהַפֵּךְ
mithappēkh
GROWS FROM
הפך
to turn, overturn, or transform
“turned it over” in this verse is mithappēkh. Hebrew repeats the root הָפַךְ (hāphakh, to turn or overturn): first the loaf turns through the camp, then it turns the tent over. One root binds the loaf’s motion to the tent’s overthrow, so the collapse is already inside the tumble.
ALSO GROWS
mithappēkh: turning, tumbling
מִתְהַפֵּךְ
This is the loaf’s motion as it enters the camp.
mahpekah: overthrow, destruction
מַהְפֵּכָה
This related form carries the same turning root into the language of overthrow, joining the loaf’s tumble to the tent’s collapse.
THE PATTERN
An apparently small or weak thing can overturn what appears secure and powerful.
And Jonathan said to the young man who carried his gear, Go, and let us cross over to the standing post of these uncircumcised. Perhaps the LORD will work for us, for there is no holding back for the LORD to deliver by many or by few.The stone the builders push away becomes the head of the corner.But God picked out the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; and God picked out the weak things of the world to shame the strong.THE THREAD
And his companion answered and said, This is nothing else but the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel; for into his hand God has given Midian, and all the camp.The next verse names what the dream means: the loaf and tent picture Gideon’s defeat of Midian and its host. The army’s apparent dominance has already become an image of collapse before the battle begins.
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