What Does Judges 8:21 Mean?
Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, Rise you, and fall upon us, for as the man is, so is his strength. And Gideon rose and struck down Zebah and Zalmunna, and took the crescents from the necks of their camels.
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 Zebah and Zalmunna said, Rise thou, and fall upon us: for as the man is, so is his strength. And Gideon arose, and slew Zebah and Zalmunna, and took away the ornaments that were on their camels’ necks.THE KEY
The kings measure Gideon’s might by the man he is, then ask that might to enact their deaths.
THE MEANING
The two kings ask Gideon himself to kill them, measuring his force by the man he is; Gideon rises, kills them, and takes the crescent ornaments from their camels. The verse holds the requested death and the taking of its spoils in the same plain account.
THE ROOT
קוּם
qûm
GROWS FROM
קום
q-w-m
Rise, stand, or be established.
“Rise / arose” in this verse is qûm. The kings’ “Rise” is קוּם (qûm, “rise”), and Gideon’s “arose” is וַיָּקָם (wayyāqom, “he rose”), the same root in the next clause. Their command folds directly into his action: they name what he must do, and the narrative says he does it.
ALSO GROWS
qûm: Rise or stand.
קוּם
This is the kings’ command to Gideon and the root echoed in the account of his rising.
hēqîm: Raise up or establish.
הֵקִים
This causative form shows the root can describe making something stand or endure, beyond a person rising.
גְּבוּרָתוֹ
gevurato
GROWS FROM
גבר
g-b-r
Be strong or prevail.
In “as the man is,” the text uses אִישׁ (ish, “man”); “his strength” is גְּבוּרָתוֹ (gevurato, “his might”). That might belongs to the גבר family of being strong or prevailing, sharpening the kings’ claim that the man’s force matches the man himself.
ALSO GROWS
gever: Man or strong man.
גֶּבֶר
This branch brings manhood and strength into the same word family as the might named in the verse.
gibbor: Mighty one or warrior.
גִּבּוֹר
It shows the root’s connection to strength embodied in a person.
gabar: Be strong or prevail.
גָּבַר
This verb makes the root’s sense of prevailing explicit.
THE PATTERN
A call to rise becomes visible in the action that follows.
Rise, walk through the land in its length and in its breadth, for I will give it to you.I say to you, Arise, take up your mat, and go into your house.THE THREAD
And he said to Jether his firstborn, Rise, and strike them down. But the youth did not draw his sword, for he was afraid, for he was yet a youth.“Up” in the command to Jether uses the same root, קום (qûm, “rise”), as the kings’ “Rise” to Gideon. The youth does not draw his sword; when the kings address Gideon with that same command, the next clause says he rises and kills them.
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