What Does Judges 19:9 Mean in the King James?
And when the man rose up to depart, he, and his concubine, and his servant, his father in law, the damsel’s father, said unto him, Behold, now the day draweth toward evening, I pray you tarry all night: behold, the day groweth to an end, lodge here, that thine heart may be merry; and to morrow get you early on your way, that thou mayest go home.
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 day “slackens” with the same Hebrew root that can mean “release,” so the invitation to stay unfolds as daylight itself lets go.
THE MEANING
Someone is ready to depart while another makes staying sound gentle: lodging, a cheerful heart, and an early start. The day is already slackening, but courtesy does not secure the night; the invitation sits beside the brutal violence that follows. That collision makes the threshold between welcome and danger feel painfully close.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A courteous invitation does not, by itself, prove that staying is safe.
THE ROOT
רָפָה
raphah
GROWS FROM
רפה
To slacken, grow weak, or let go.
The day is described with a word that carries the sense of slackening or losing strength. The same root can describe letting go, so English “draweth toward evening” conceals a shared image of something loosening its hold.
ALSO GROWS
harpu: Release, cease; rendered “be still.”
הַרְפּוּ
Psalm 46:10 uses this form of the same root. The word links the day’s slackening with the act of releasing one’s grip.
vatirpenah: Her or their strength slackened; “grew weak.”
וַתִּרְפֶּינָה
In 2 Samuel 4:1, this root describes Saul’s son’s hands becoming feeble, showing how it can name a loss of strength as well as a letting go.
THE PATTERN
As daylight fades, a journey can pause at the invitation to stay the night.
And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant’s house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night.But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them.THE THREAD
Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.Psalm 46:10 uses הַרְפּוּ (harpu), from the same root as the day that “slackens” here. One root links the fading of strength with release, a connection the English phrases leave hidden.
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