What Does Judges 18:18 Mean in the King James?
And these went into Micah’s house, and fetched the carved image, the ephod, and the teraphim, and the molten image. Then said the priest unto them, What do ye?
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 carved and cast objects called sacred are carried off, while the priest’s question comes after the taking is already underway.
THE MEANING
What people call sacred can still be handled as something to seize and carry away. Here the carved and cast forms pass into other hands while the priest asks what is happening. The verse keeps the objects’ vulnerability and the taking itself in view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that sacred objects are protected from human power: every object named here is taken.
THE ROOT
פֶּסֶל
pesel
GROWS FROM
פ־ס־ל
p-s-l
Hew, carve, cut into shape.
“carved image” in this verse is pesel. The Hebrew noun carries the action of carving inside the name of the object. Set beside the cast image, it shows two forms shaped by human hands, and both are taken.
ALSO GROWS
pāsal: To hew or carve.
פָּסַל
The object in the verse is named from the act that shapes it.
pesel: A carved image.
פֶּסֶל
This is the shaped object itself, preserving its human-made origin in its name.
מַסֵּכָה
massekhah
GROWS FROM
נ־ס־ך
n-s-k
Pour out; pour or cast metal.
“molten image” in this verse is massekhah. The Hebrew noun carries the action of pouring or casting inside the name of the image. Alongside the carved image, it makes the different acts of shaping visible in the list.
ALSO GROWS
nāsakh: To pour out or cast.
נָסַךְ
This verb names the pouring that forms the image.
nesekh: A poured drink offering, or libation.
נֶסֶךְ
The same root also names something poured out, linking the cast image with another poured form.
THE PATTERN
Human-made sacred objects can be shaped, handled, and carried as things, revealing their dependence on human action.
Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle: your carriages were heavy loaden; they are a burden to the weary beast.They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.THE THREAD
And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.The molten image in both verses is מַסֵּכָה (massekhah), a cast image, from נ־ס־ך (n-s-k), meaning to pour out or cast. Here the word links an image being taken with one being fashioned and given a divine claim.
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