What Does Judges 11:7 Mean in the King James?
And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, Did not ye hate me, and expel me out of my father’s house? and why are ye come unto me now when ye are in distress?
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
When a community’s world narrows, it may return to the person it once cast out.
THE MEANING
This verse meets you where people return because they need what they once rejected. Their present need does not erase the earlier expulsion. The narrowing that brings them back makes the discarded person newly visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being cast out does not mean you have nothing the people who cast you out may need.
THE ROOT
צַר
tsar
GROWS FROM
צרר
to bind, press, or make tight
The elders come when it is tsar for them: life has tightened, and their room to move has narrowed. The root makes distress feel like being pressed into a constricted place, echoing Mitzrayim (מִצְרַיִם, Mitzrayim, the two narrows).
ALSO GROWS
tsarah: trouble, adversity
צָרָה
This related form shows that the tightness named by tsar can be experienced as distress.
tsorer: one who presses or afflicts
צֹרֵר
The same root can describe the force that hems someone in, giving distress the sense of being pressed from outside as well as within.
גֵּרַשׁ
garash
GROWS FROM
גרש
to drive out or cast away
“expel” in this verse is garash. The elders’ word for what they did carries the force of driving someone away from belonging. Now, as their own situation tightens, they seek the person they put outside.
ALSO GROWS
gerushah: a woman put away or divorced
גְּרוּשָׁה
This branch carries the sense of a relationship being severed, deepening the force of expulsion from a father’s house.
megorash: one who has been expelled or banished
מְגֹרָשׁ
The passive form keeps the focus on the person who bears the community’s act of casting away.
THE PATTERN
A community can reject the person who later becomes central to its rescue.
But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner.THE THREAD
The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.Jephthah’s expulsion and the refused stone share a reversal: what a community sets aside becomes central when it needs support. The elders’ return does not undo the rejection; it reveals that the one they discarded was not disposable.
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