What Does Judges 16:31 Mean in the King James?

Then his brethren and all the house of his father came down, and took him, and brought him up, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the buryingplace of Manoah his father. And he judged Israel twenty years.

Judges 16:31 · 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

Samson is buried between the same two places where his calling first began, so his story closes on the ground that first set him in motion.

THE MEANING

You are not reduced to your last scene: the people bound to you can carry you home, and the place where your movement begins can also hold its ending. Your work has a span, here named as twenty years, while your body is returned to the rest carried in your father’s name.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The lie this verse undoes is that your final act is the whole meaning of your life: it names Samson’s burial, but also the twenty years he judged Israel.

THE ROOT

מָנוֹחַ

Manoah

GROWS FROM

נוח

To rest, settle, or come to rest.

“Manoah, his father’s name” in this verse is Manoah. Samson is buried in the place of a father whose name carries rest, turning the family burial place into an image of repose. The story that once showed Samson moved between these same places now lays him down there.

ALSO GROWS

nuach: To rest or settle.

נוּחַ

This root gives the name Manoah its association with rest, coloring the place where Samson is buried.

menuchah: Rest or a resting place.

מְנוּחָה

This branch makes the burial place resonate with the idea of rest carried in his father’s name.

וַיִּשְׁפֹּט

Wayyishpot

GROWS FROM

שפט

To judge, decide, or govern.

“Judged” in this verse is Wayyishpot. The Hebrew verb for judging and the noun for judgment grow from the same seed: the verse names an active work of ordering, not only a title. The twenty years give that work a defined span as the story closes.

ALSO GROWS

shofet: A judge, one who judges.

שֹׁפֵט

This is the same root in the person who carries out the judging.

mishpat: Judgment, justice, or a decision.

מִשְׁפָּט

This branch shows the work of judging and the judgment it produces as expressions of one root.

THE PATTERN

A closing scene can return to the ground where a life’s movement first began.

And the Spirit of the LORD began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.

Judges 13:25 · KJVSamson’s movement first begins between Zorah and Eshtaol, the same two places that frame his burial here.

And he went on his journeys from the south even to Beth-el, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Beth-el and Hai;

Genesis 13:3 · KJVAbram returns to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, making return to his starting ground part of the story.

Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto him, We also go with thee. They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately; and that night they caught nothing.

John 21:3 · KJVAfter the upheaval of Jesus’s death, Peter returns to fishing with the others, and the next scene meets them in that familiar work setting.

THE THREAD

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

Psalm 23:2 · KJV

The name ⁨מָנוֹחַ⁩ (Manoah, “rest”) is associated with ⁨נוח⁩ (nuach, “rest”), and the Hebrew phrase ⁨מֵי מְנֻחוֹת⁩ (mei menuchot, “waters of rest”) carries that same root. The shared seed connects Samson’s burial place, named through his father, with the Psalm’s image of being led into rest.

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