What Does Judges 18:16 Mean in the King James?
And the six hundred men appointed with their weapons of war, which were of the children of Dan, stood by the entering of the gate.
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
Six hundred armed men at an opening make the gate a position of control: the threat begins with who occupies the passage.
THE MEANING
A doorway can become a place where power controls passage. Here, six hundred men carrying weapons of war occupy the gate’s opening, so entrance and exit meet organized force. The danger is already present in their position; no blow needs to be described for the threshold to feel held.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief that danger begins only when violence strikes dissolves here: armed men already make passage unsafe by occupying the entrance.
THE ROOT
פֶּתַח
petaḥ
GROWS FROM
פתח
p-t-ḥ
To open; the action of opening.
The word rendered “entering” means an opening or entrance, from the same root as the act of opening. The armed men do not merely stand near the gate: they occupy the place through which passage opens.
ALSO GROWS
pataḥ: To open.
פָּתַח
The verb names the action carried by the entrance’s root: opening a way through.
maphtēaḥ: Key.
מַפְתֵּחַ
A key is an instrument that opens; this branch shows how the root connects the entrance with control over access.
נִצָּבִים
nitsavim
GROWS FROM
נצב
n-ts-b
To stand, take a position, or station oneself.
English “stood” can sound like a simple posture, while this root carries the sense of being stationed. Joined to the word for opening, it shows the men taking up a deliberate position at the passage.
ALSO GROWS
natsav: To stand or station oneself.
נָצַב
The verb makes their presence at the entrance an act of taking position.
matsav: A station, post, or position.
מַצָּב
This noun makes visible the place held by those who are stationed there.
דָּן
Dān
GROWS FROM
דין
d-y-n
To judge or contend; the name Dan is associated with “he judged.”
The tribal name carries a resonance of judgment, linked to the naming of Dan in Genesis. The verse holds that name beside a scene of armed men controlling an entrance, making the name more than a bare label without turning it into a verdict on them.
ALSO GROWS
Dān: Dan; associated with “he judged.”
דָּן
The name itself carries the judgment resonance that English leaves unspoken.
yādîn: He judges.
יָדִין
This form makes the judging sense audible in the language around the name Dan.
THE PATTERN
Openings mark where passage is contested, guarded, or received.
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the bason, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the bason; and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning.Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.THE THREAD
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.Genesis calls the door פֶּתַח (petaḥ, “opening” or “entrance”), the same word used here for the gate’s entering. In Judges the armed men occupy the opening; in Genesis, sin crouches at it, the shared word makes the threshold a place where danger presses toward passage.
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