What Does Judges 19:23 Mean in the King James?
And the man, the master of the house, went out unto them, and said unto them, Nay, my brethren, nay, I pray you, do not so wickedly; seeing that this man is come into mine house, do not this folly.
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
He names the mob’s assault as an outrage, yet the next verse shows him offering the women in his house to protect the male guest.
THE MEANING
The verse names the mob’s threatened sexual assault as an outrage, but the man frames his plea around the male guest’s safety and his household’s claim of hospitality. It exposes a contradiction that remains present wherever protection is declared while people at greatest risk are treated as expendable; the next verse makes the cost explicit when he offers the women to the mob.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Saying that violence is wrong does not prove that everyone is protected from it. A person can name evil while treating some people as expendable.
THE ROOT
נְבָלָה
nĕbālāh
GROWS FROM
נבל
n-b-l
To wither or become senseless; in moral use, to become foolish.
The same root describes withering, while נָבָל (nābāl) means a morally senseless fool. Here, “folly” names a grave moral collapse: the same word describes sexual violation as an outrage in Genesis 34:7 and 2 Samuel 13:12.
ALSO GROWS
nābāl: A fool; one who is morally senseless.
נָבָל
This branch makes the folly a failure of moral judgment, not a mere breach of manners.
nōḇelet: Withering or fading, as a leaf fades.
נֹבֶלֶת
This branch preserves the root’s image of vitality collapsing, giving “folly” a weight beyond simple imprudence.
THE PATTERN
Sexual violation is named as a grave outrage, and the victim does not bear its guilt.
And the sons of Jacob came out of the field when they heard it: and the men were grieved, and they were very wroth, because he had wrought folly in Israel in lying with Jacob’s daughter; which thing ought not to be done.But unto the damsel thou shalt do nothing; there is in the damsel no sin worthy of death: for as when a man riseth against his neighbour, and slayeth him, even so is this matter:And she answered him, Nay, my brother, do not force me; for no such thing ought to be done in Israel: do not thou this folly.THE THREAD
And the sons of Jacob came out of the field when they heard it: and the men were grieved, and they were very wroth, because he had wrought folly in Israel in lying with Jacob’s daughter; which thing ought not to be done.Judges 19:23 uses נְבָלָה (nĕbālāh, “folly” or “outrage”), the same word Genesis 34:7 uses for Shechem’s assault on Dinah. The shared root gives the host’s accusation its full force, and sharpens the contradiction between naming the assault as evil and failing to protect the women in his house.
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