What Does Judges 16:3 Mean in the King James?
And Samson lay till midnight, and arose at midnight, and took the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts, and went away with them, bar and all, and put them upon his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of an hill that is before Hebron.
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
Samson carries the city’s entire threshold away, turning its boundary into a burden outside the walls.
THE MEANING
The gate’s doors, posts, and bar become a single load on Samson’s shoulders; the city’s threshold is carried from its place. The verse holds the force plainly: the barrier is seized, lifted, and removed. Its boundary does not remain fixed simply because it was built to close the way.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The boundary is fixed, and passage is possible only through the opening it provides.
THE ROOT
וַיִּשָּׂא
wayyissa
GROWS FROM
נשא
nasa
To lift, bear, or carry.
The verb נשא (nasa, “lift, bear, carry”) describes Samson carrying the whole gate assembly. Its branches include מַשָּׂא (massa, “load, burden”) and נָשָׂא עָוֹן (nasa avon, “bear crookedness”); English separates physical weight from what a person bears. Here, even the boundary itself becomes a load carried outside the city.
ALSO GROWS
massa: A load or burden.
מַשָּׂא
The gate and its fittings become a literal load on Samson’s shoulders.
nasa avon: To bear crookedness or guilt.
נָשָׂא עָוֹן
The same root spans carrying a physical object and bearing what weighs on a person; here the weight is the city’s barrier.
THE PATTERN
A barrier loses its hold when its gate and bars are broken, opened, or carried out of place.
For he hath broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder.I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:When they were past the first and the second ward, they came unto the iron gate that leadeth unto the city; which opened to them of his own accord: and they went out, and passed on through one street; and forthwith the angel departed from him.THE THREAD
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.The same root, נשא (nasa, “bear, carry”), appears in Judges as “carried” and in Isaiah as “borne.” Judges makes the root’s physical weight visible: what stands as a barrier can be lifted onto shoulders.
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