What Does Judges 20:11 Mean in the King James?
So all the men of Israel were gathered against the city, knit together as one man.
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
“Knit together” names a joining that turns many people into one force, but their shared purpose is directed against a city.
THE MEANING
People can become joined so fully that they act as one force. Here that force gathers against a city; unity does not itself make a purpose harmless or righteous.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that unity is automatically good: people can be knit together in a purpose directed against a city.
THE ROOT
חֲבֵרִים
ḥăbērîm
GROWS FROM
חבר
ḥ-b-r
To join, bind, or associate.
“knit together” in this verse is ḥăbērîm. The phrase says “as one man, joined”: the people are bound into a coordinated whole. The same root names joining itself, while “against the city” shows that connection can serve a purpose that threatens others.
ALSO GROWS
ḥābar: To join, bind, or associate.
חָבַר
The same verb describes curtains coupled together in Exodus 26:3, making the joining here concrete: many parts linked into one whole.
ḥābēr: A companion or associate.
חָבֵר
The companion is someone joined to another; the word family makes relationship itself part of the root’s picture of connection.
THE PATTERN
When many are joined around one purpose, their unity turns separate people into a shared force.
And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.THE THREAD
The five curtains shall be coupled together one to another; and other five curtains shall be coupled one to another.The Hebrew verb behind “coupled together,” וְחִבַּרְתָּ (weḥibbarta, join), shares the ח־ב־ר root with “knit together.” The same joining can bind curtains into one structure or people into a single force; the root names the connection, while the purpose gives it its direction.
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