What Does Judges 10:7 Mean in the King James?
And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hands of the Philistines, and into the hands of the children of Ammon.
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 verse turns divine anger into a concrete transfer of power: Israel is sold into the hands of those who now control them.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now through an unsettling image: anger becomes heat, and its consequence is Israel sold into hostile hands. It names the loss of freedom plainly, as a people placed under the control of the Philistines and the Ammonites.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that divine anger is only an inward feeling without concrete consequences.
THE ROOT
וַיִּמְכְּרֵם
wayyimkerem
GROWS FROM
מכר
m-k-r
To sell; to transfer something or someone through a sale.
“sold” in this verse is wayyimkerem. The verse uses the language of a sale for Israel’s transfer into enemy hands. That makes the loss of freedom feel concrete: the people are treated as property under another power’s control.
ALSO GROWS
nimkar: Be sold
נִמְכַּר
This passive form from the same root makes the state of being sold explicit, as Israel is here.
mimkar: A sale or thing sold
מִמְכָּר
This noun keeps the commercial sense visible beneath the military handover.
אַף
aph
GROWS FROM
אַף
Nose or nostril; in this idiom, anger and heat. The verse pairs it with חָרָה (charah), “burn” or “be kindled.”
The Hebrew phrase pictures the nostril or anger as burning: the English “anger was hot” preserves that heat. Anger is not left as an abstract feeling in this verse; the next phrase gives it a consequence in the transfer of control.
ALSO GROWS
appayim: Nostrils; also used in expressions for anger
אַפַּיִם
This form preserves the bodily image beneath anger language.
erekh appayim: Slow to anger; literally, “long of nostrils”
אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם
The same image can describe anger that is slow to flare, giving the heat in this verse a clear contrast.
THE PATTERN
Scripture depicts judgment as a handover into another power’s control.
And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about, so that they could not any longer stand before their enemies.How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had shut them up?Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:THE THREAD
How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had shut them up?The Hebrew word translated “sold” shares the root מכר (makhar) with Judges 10:7. Deuteronomy uses the same image of a sale to show the loss of power as a transfer under hostile control.
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