What Does Judges 18:31 Mean in the King James?
And they set them up Micah’s graven image, which he made, all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh.
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 image remains the work of human hands even while it stands in the shadow of the house of God.
THE MEANING
The verse places a human-made image beside the house called God’s and leaves their difference visible. The image remains Micah’s, marked by the hands that made it; its continued place does not change what it is.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A religious setting does not make every object within it an expression of God’s presence.
THE ROOT
פֶּסֶל
pesel
GROWS FROM
פסל
To carve, hew, or cut into shape.
“graven image” in this verse is pesel. The noun פֶּסֶל (pesel, carved image) grows from פָּסַל (pasal, to carve or hew): the object carries the mark of the act that shaped it. Its place beside the house of God does not erase its origin as something cut into form by human hands.
ALSO GROWS
pasal: To carve or hew.
פָּסַל
The verb names the shaping act behind the image.
pesilim: Carved images.
פְּסִילִים
This plural form shows the same root naming the objects produced by carving.
THE PATTERN
A human-shaped image remains the work of human hands and cannot contain the God it is taken to represent.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:They that make a graven image are all of them vanity; and their delectable things shall not profit; and they are their own witnesses; they see not, nor know; that they may be ashamed.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
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:Judges names the Danite object פֶּסֶל (pesel, carved image), the same Hebrew word used in Exodus 20:4. The shared word keeps the object’s carved nature visible, even when it is set up beside the house of God.
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