What Does Judges 14:14 Mean in the King James?
And he said unto them, Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness. And they could not in three days expound the riddle.
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 Hebrew root for “eater” also forms the word for “food,” making the devourer itself the source of nourishment.
THE MEANING
The riddle turns appetite and strength around: food comes from the eater, and sweetness comes from what is strong. What appears able only to consume or overpower can hold an unexpected source of nourishment and delight.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the belief that what has the power to consume can only destroy, or that strength can produce only harm.
THE ROOT
הָאֹכֵל
hāʾōkhēl
GROWS FROM
אכל
ʾ-kh-l
To eat, consume.
“eater / meat” in this verse is hāʾōkhēl. The same three consonants form both “eater” and “food.” Hebrew keeps the consumer and what is consumed in one word-family, so the riddle’s reversal is embedded in its words: the eater becomes a source of food.
ALSO GROWS
ʾōkhēl: One who eats.
אָכֵל
This is the figure from whom the food unexpectedly comes.
maʾăkhāl: Something eaten; food.
מַאֲכָל
It shares the root of “eater,” joining consumer and nourishment in the same word-family.
יָצָא
yāṣāʾ
GROWS FROM
יצא
y-ts-ʾ
To go out, come forth, emerge.
“came forth” in this verse is yāṣāʾ. The same verb describes food coming from the eater and sweetness from the strong. Its repetition makes emergence the riddle’s central movement: what appears inside a source comes out of it unexpectedly.
ALSO GROWS
yāṣāʾ: Went out, came forth.
יָצָא
This is the repeated verb that gives both halves the same movement of emergence.
mōṣāʾ: A way out or point of emergence.
מוֹצָא
This related form echoes the verse’s focus on where something comes out.
THE PATTERN
What seems to consume or harden can become the source from which nourishment or life emerges.
He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock;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.Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.THE THREAD
For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:Isaiah’s לָאֹכֵל (laʾokhel, “for the eater”) shares the אכל root with “eater” and “food” in Judges. Isaiah shows the earth producing bread for the eater; Judges turns the relation around, making the eater itself the surprising source of food.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us