What Does Judges 1:25 Mean in the King James?

And when he shewed them the entrance into the city, they smote the city with the edge of the sword; but they let go the man and all his family.

Judges 1:25 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

Here, “let go” means “send out”: one household is released through movement away, even as the city is destroyed.

THE MEANING

The verse holds destruction and release in the same frame: the city is struck by the sword, while the man who reveals its entrance and his whole family are sent away. Their release does not undo or soften the violence done to the city. It names exactly who is sent out.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The belief that violence necessarily erases every distinction between those inside a city; the verse sets the city’s destruction beside one household’s release.

THE ROOT

שִׁלְּחוּ

shilleḥu

GROWS FROM

שלח

shalach

To send, send forth, or release; to move someone outward or away.

English “let go” can sound like simply loosening a grip; this verb also means sending someone out. The man and his household are released by being sent away while the city is destroyed, so the verse makes release concrete and sharply bounded.

ALSO GROWS

shalach: To send, send forth, release.

שָׁלַח

This is the same root behind the command “Let my people go” in Exodus 5:1.

shilluaḥ: Sending away; dismissal.

שִׁלּוּחַ

This branch makes release an outward movement away from a hold, like the household’s departure here.

חֶרֶב

cherev

GROWS FROM

חרב

charav

To become desolate or be laid waste; these consonants also form the word for sword here.

The phrase rendered “edge of the sword” is literally “mouth of the sword” (⁨לְפִי־חָרֶב⁩, lefi cherev, by the mouth of a sword). The sword’s word-family also carries desolation, bringing the weapon and the ruin it leaves close together in the Hebrew.

ALSO GROWS

charav: To become desolate; to be laid waste.

חָרַב

The city is struck by a sword whose consonants also name the desolation that follows.

ḥarēv: Dry, desolate, ruined.

חָרֵב

This branch carries desolation as a condition, echoing the city’s destruction.

THE PATTERN

Release moves a held person out of another’s power.

And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.

Exodus 5:1 · KJVRelease is stated as an imperative: the people are to be sent out of the ruler’s hold.

For if a man find his enemy, will he let him go well away? wherefore the LORD reward thee good for that thou hast done unto me this day.

1 Samuel 24:19 · KJVThe verse names letting an enemy go as a distinct act available to the one who holds power over him.

Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt.

Matthew 18:27 · KJVThe servant is released from both a person’s hold and the debt that binds him.

THE THREAD

And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.

Exodus 5:1 · KJV

Judges uses the root ⁨שלח⁩ (shalach, send or release) for the man and his household sent away; Exodus 5:1 uses the same root in “Let my people go.” Both make release a literal sending out, from a city being struck in Judges, and from a ruler’s hold in Exodus.

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