What Does Judges 16:6 Mean in the King James?
And Delilah said to Samson, Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee.
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 question reaches for the hidden point where strength can become a place of captivity.
THE MEANING
This question searches for what gives you strength and what can restrain it. The verse holds power and vulnerability together: strength does not make a person impossible to bind.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that strength makes a person untouchable; the verse shows that vulnerability can be sought through the very source of that strength.
THE ROOT
תֵאָסֵר
tēʾāsēr
GROWS FROM
אָסַר
ʾāsar
To bind or restrain.
The word translated “bound” belongs to the same root family as words for a captive and imprisonment. That connection makes Delilah’s question reach beyond physical restraint: it seeks the means by which strength can be turned into confinement.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāsîr: Captive or prisoner.
אָסִיר
The branch names the person held by the binding Delilah is asking how to bring about.
maʾasār: Imprisonment or confinement.
מַאֲסָר
It shows how the act of binding extends into a state of being held.
THE PATTERN
When a hidden source or sign is disclosed, it can become the route by which another person is seized or restrained.
That he told her all his heart, and said unto her, There hath not come a razor upon mine head; for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother’s womb: if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast.THE THREAD
But the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the prison house.The question in verse 6 names the possibility of binding; here that restraint becomes literal. The same Hebrew root, אָסַר (ʾāsar), links the sought-after means of restraint to the fetters on Samson.
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