What Does Judges 19:2 Mean in the King James?
And his concubine played the whore against him, and went away from him unto her father’s house to Beth-lehem-judah, and was there four whole months.
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
Her departure lands at a place named “house of bread,” while four months make the rupture endure.
THE MEANING
The verse holds sexual accusation and distance in the same frame: she leaves the man she is accused of betraying and goes to her father’s house. Beth-lehem (בֵּית לֶחֶם, bêt leḥem), “house of bread,” names her destination as a place of provision even as the relationship remains ruptured. Four months make the separation sustained, and the verse leaves the charge unresolved.
THE ROOT
זָנְתָה
zāntāh
GROWS FROM
זנה
z-n-h
To commit sexual unfaithfulness or prostitution.
“played the whore against him” in this verse is zāntāh. The verb describing her act and the noun naming a prostitute branch from the same seed, holding act and identity close together. That echo gives the accusation force even as the verse separately names her departure and sustained absence.
ALSO GROWS
zānâ: To commit fornication or be sexually unfaithful.
זָנָה
This verb form shares the root of the act attributed to her in the verse.
zônāh: A prostitute or harlot.
זוֹנָה
This noun carries the same root into a name for the person associated with the act.
THE PATTERN
Separation takes spatial form as movement away or the longing to move away.
But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy maid is in thy hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face.And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest.And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.THE THREAD
The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD.Hosea uses the same Hebrew root for “whoredom,” linking its language of unfaithfulness to the accusation in Judges. Here that word sits beside “departing,” bringing sexual betrayal and distance into the same frame.
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