What Does Judges 11:15 Mean in the King James?
And said unto him, Thus saith Jephthah, Israel took not away the land of Moab, nor the land 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
A claim to land does not erase the boundary between what one people took and what belongs to another.
THE MEANING
A boundary remains real even while it is disputed. A claim does not make another people’s land yours; the verse ties possession to the concrete act of taking.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that a forceful claim can turn a neighbor’s land into yours. The verse makes the actual taking, or its absence, the test.
THE ROOT
לָקַח
lāqaḥ
GROWS FROM
לקח
l-q-ḥ
To take, receive, or acquire.
“took” in this verse is lāqaḥ. The same root holds taking and receiving together, with its sense shaped by what is taken and how. Here, the denial concerns the actual acquisition of Moab’s and Ammon’s land.
ALSO GROWS
leqaḥ: Instruction or teaching; what is received.
לֶקַח
This branch shows the root extending from taking something into possession to receiving something inwardly.
lāqaḥ ʾiššāh: To take a wife.
לָקַח אִשָּׁה
The verb can describe entering a relationship as well as acquiring an object, showing that its meaning depends on what is being taken.
יִפְתָּח
Yiftaḥ
GROWS FROM
פתח
p-t-ḥ
To open or loosen.
Jephthah’s name carries the sense “he opens.” Here he opens his reply by drawing a distinction between Israel’s land and the lands of Moab and Ammon.
ALSO GROWS
pātaḥ: To open or loosen.
פָּתַח
The verb gives the name its sense of opening and echoes the speaker’s opening of a formal reply.
pétaḥ: An opening or doorway.
פֶּתַח
This related noun gives the root a concrete form: an opening through which something may pass.
THE PATTERN
A boundary marks what is given to one people and limits what another can claim.
And the LORD said unto me, Distress not the Moabites, neither contend with them in battle: for I will not give thee of their land for a possession; because I have given Ar unto the children of Lot for a possession.And when thou comest nigh over against the children of Ammon, distress them not, nor meddle with them: for I will not give thee of the land of the children of Ammon any possession; because I have given it unto the children of Lot for a possession.And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;THE THREAD
And the LORD said unto me, Distress not the Moabites, neither contend with them in battle: for I will not give thee of their land for a possession; because I have given Ar unto the children of Lot for a possession.This verse names the boundary behind Jephthah’s claim: Moab’s land is explicitly given to the children of Lot. The denial in Judges rests on that distinction between land given to Moab and land Israel could claim.
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