What Does Judges 16:1 Mean in the King James?

Then went Samson to Gaza, and saw there an harlot, and went in unto her.

Judges 16:1 · 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.

THE KEY

The Hebrew word rendered “harlot” belongs to a root scripture also uses for covenant unfaithfulness, giving the verse’s sexual term a wider relational resonance.

THE MEANING

You meet the scene as a bare sequence: Samson reaches Gaza, sees a woman identified by her sexual trade, and goes in to her. The verse gives his action plainly while leaving his motive and her voice unstated; that silence is part of what the text lets you see.

THE ROOT

זֹונָה

zonah

GROWS FROM

זנה

to act as a prostitute; to commit sexual unfaithfulness

“harlot” in this verse is zonah. Here, zonah names the woman by her sexual trade. Elsewhere the same root also speaks of covenant unfaithfulness, carrying the term from a concrete sexual relation into a wider vocabulary of fidelity and betrayal without erasing the literal scene.

ALSO GROWS

zanah: to act as a prostitute; to commit sexual unfaithfulness

זָנָה

This is the verb from which zonah is formed, making the verse’s label part of a larger root family.

zenunim: prostitution; acts of sexual unfaithfulness

זְנוּנִים

Hosea uses this form for both sexual and covenant unfaithfulness, showing the root’s wider relational reach.

THE PATTERN

The gaze can become the threshold through which desire moves into taking or entering.

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

Genesis 3:6 · KJVSeeing is joined to evaluation, and the movement ends in taking and eating.

And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king’s house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon. And David sent and enquired after the woman. And one said, Is not this Bath-sheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him, and he lay with her; for she was purified from her uncleanness: and she returned unto her house.

2 Samuel 11:2-4 · KJVDavid’s gaze becomes enquiry and taking in the same scene, making the movement from sight into action explicit.

But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

Matthew 5:28 · KJVJesus names the inward gaze as already bearing the shape of the act.

THE THREAD

The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD.

Hosea 1:2 · KJV

Judges uses zonah for the woman’s sexual trade; Hosea uses the same z-n-h root for a people’s departure from the LORD. The shared root does not make the situations identical; it shows how scripture extends sexual language into a way of naming relational betrayal.

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