What Does Judges 20:12 Mean in the King James?
And the tribes of Israel sent men through all the tribe of Benjamin, saying, What wickedness is this that is done among you?
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 same Hebrew word appears for Israel’s “tribes” and Benjamin’s “tribe,” carrying the question through a shared kinship structure.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to you wherever wrongdoing is held inside a community: it names the evil as “among you” and makes the community part of the inquiry. The question remains open, carrying the accusation without yet giving an answer or remedy.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that wrongdoing becomes beyond question simply because it happens inside a community.
THE ROOT
הָרָעָה
hā-rāʿāh
GROWS FROM
רעע
To be bad or evil; its word family can also name harm, distress, or calamity.
“Wickedness” can sound like a fixed moral label, while hā-rāʿāh belongs to a word family that also names harm and distress. The question points to evil that has arisen among a people and to the damage carried with it.
ALSO GROWS
raʿ: Bad; evil.
רַע
This form shares the root with the noun for wickedness, linking the quality of evil with the evil named in the question.
rāʿāh: Evil; harm, distress, or calamity.
רָעָה
The noun’s broader range lets the accusation carry both moral wrong and the harm it brings.
וַיִּשְׁלְחוּ
vayyishleḥū
GROWS FROM
שלח
To send, send forth, release, or let go.
The men are sent forth through the whole Benjaminite community, so the inquiry travels into the place where the wrong is said to have occurred. The root can also carry the sense of release or sending away, though here it marks the dispatch of an inquiry.
ALSO GROWS
shilluaḥ: Sending away; dismissal or release.
שִׁלּוּחַ
It shows the root’s reach from sending outward to letting go.
Shiloaḥ: Shiloah, associated with sent waters.
שִׁלֹחַ
The name preserves the same send-root in the waters of Shiloah, later named Siloam in John 9:7.
שִׁבְטֵי
shivṭê
GROWS FROM
שבט
A staff or rod; also a tribe or clan.
“tribes / tribe” in this verse is shivṭê. Both phrases use the same Hebrew form, shivṭê: “the tribes of Israel” and “all the tribe of Benjamin.” The English shifts between plural and singular, while the Hebrew keeps both groups within the same kinship language.
ALSO GROWS
sheveṭ: Staff, rod, or scepter.
שֵׁבֶט
This is another sense of the same Hebrew word, linking the community-name with an image of a staff or rod.
sheveṭ: Tribe or clan.
שֵׁבֶט
The word names both the sending tribes and the Benjaminite groups receiving their inquiry.
THE PATTERN
Wrong inside a community becomes visible and answerable when it is brought into open inquiry.
Then shalt thou enquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought among you;It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.THE THREAD
And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.Judges asks what hā-rāʿāh has arisen among Benjamin; Genesis uses the same Hebrew word family for human wickedness. The shared root opens the local question onto evil as both moral wrong and the harm it carries.
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