What Does Judges 11:31 Mean in the King James?

Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD’s, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.

Judges 11:31 · 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

The vow turns an unknown arrival into an offering before Jephthah knows what is coming through the door.

THE MEANING

This vow binds an unknown outcome before its shape is visible: whatever crosses the threshold is claimed for the LORD and named as a burnt offering. The promise places no stated boundary around what may emerge. Its sacred wording does not erase the violence in the offering it names.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The belief that a vow directed to the LORD cannot carry violence collapses here: its words bind an unknown being to a burnt offering.

THE ROOT

הַיּוֹצֵא

hayyotsēʾ

GROWS FROM

יצא

Go out, come forth, depart.

“cometh forth” in this verse is hayyotsēʾ. The Hebrew names the one going out from a bounded place, making the doorway part of the vow’s danger. The same verb describes Jephthah’s daughter coming out in the next verse, when the vow’s unknown object becomes painfully concrete.

ALSO GROWS

yetsi'ah: Going out, an exit.

יְצִיאָה

This branch makes the vow’s threshold explicit: its object is whoever moves from inside the house to outside.

motsa: An outlet or point of departure.

מוֹצָא

The same root can name an outlet or way out, keeping the vow tied to what emerges from a particular place.

עֹלָה

ʿolah

GROWS FROM

עלה

Rise, go up, ascend.

The offering is named as an ascent. The vow’s endpoint is not merely dedicating the unknown to the LORD, but making it rise as a burnt offering.

ALSO GROWS

ʿalah: To go up or ascend.

עָלָה

This verb is the seed behind the offering’s name, revealing the upward movement held inside the word.

ʿaliyah: An ascent or going up.

עֲלִיָּה

This branch preserves the same upward motion, showing how the offering’s name carries the idea of rising.

THE PATTERN

A vow turns words into a bond whose consequences outlast the moment of speaking.

If a man vow a vow unto the LORD, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth.

Numbers 30:2 · KJVThe vow becomes a binding commitment, and its consequences follow what the speaker lets proceed from his mouth.

Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.

Ecclesiastes 5:5 · KJVThe verse names the weight of a vow by placing the cost of making one beside the cost of failing to fulfill it.

But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.

Matthew 5:37 · KJVThe verse warns that words extended beyond a plain yes or no can carry a danger that the speaker does not control.

THE THREAD

And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.

Judges 11:34 · KJV

The verb Jephthah uses for whatever “cometh forth” is the same verb used when his daughter comes out of the house. The next verse makes the vow’s unknown object a daughter, and the open-ended words become painfully concrete.

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