What Does Judges 1:15 Mean in the King James?
And she said unto him, Give me a blessing: for thou hast given me a south land; give me also springs of water. And Caleb gave her the upper springs and the nether springs.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The “south land” carries the sense of dry land, so Achsah asks for the water that makes her inheritance livable, and receives springs above and below.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you where receiving something real still leaves a need unmet. Here, a blessing reaches beyond the land itself to include the water that lets it live.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Achsah’s request dissolves the idea that naming what a gift still lacks cancels gratitude for what is already given.
THE ROOT
נֶגֶב
Negev
GROWS FROM
נגב
To be dry or parched; as a place name, the dry southern country.
“south land” in this verse is Negev. The land’s name carries the dryness that makes Achsah’s request matter. Springs do more than add to her inheritance: they answer what the land itself lacks.
ALSO GROWS
Negeb: The dry southern region.
The place name links her inheritance to dry ground.
nagav: To be dry or parched.
This root sense brings out the contrast between the land she receives and the water she asks for.
בְּרָכָה
berakhah
GROWS FROM
ברך
To kneel or bend the knee; also to bless.
Achsah calls the added provision a blessing, then names it concretely: springs of water. The verse lets blessing take the form of what sustains the ground she has received.
ALSO GROWS
berekh: Knee.
It preserves the root’s bodily image of bending the knee.
barak: To kneel; to bless.
The related verb holds the physical image alongside the act of blessing.
תְּנָה
tenah
GROWS FROM
נתן
To give, set, or place.
“give / gave” in this verse is tenah. The same root appears in Achsah’s request and Caleb’s response: “give me” and “gave her.” Her words and his action are joined by the same verb, with springs as the answer.
ALSO GROWS
natan: To give, set, or place.
The repeated verb links her request directly to Caleb’s response.
mattanah: A gift or present.
This noun from the same root makes the act of giving visible in what is bestowed.
THE PATTERN
A gift becomes life-bearing when it carries a continuing source of water.
And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.THE THREAD
For the LORD thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills;This verse names the landscape Achsah’s request brings into view: not merely land, but brooks, fountains, and depths flowing through it. Water is part of what makes the ground a living inheritance.
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