What Does Judges 20:28 Mean in the King James?
And Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, stood before it in those days,) saying, Shall I yet again go out to battle against the children of Benjamin my brother, or shall I cease? And the LORD said, Go up; for to morrow I will deliver them into thine hand.
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 verse keeps “my brother” inside the command to fight, so the battle never makes kinship disappear.
THE MEANING
The question is whether to add another battle or stop; the answer is an unqualified “Go up.” The person on the other side is still named “my brother,” while the promised outcome is that he is given into the speaker’s hand. Kinship and violence remain in the same sentence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that calling someone an enemy erases kinship: even as the battle is commanded, the verse calls Benjamin “my brother.”
THE ROOT
הַאוֹסִיף עוֹד
ha’osif od
GROWS FROM
י־ס־ף
y-s-f
Add, increase, continue; here, “shall I add further?”
“yet again” in this verse is ha’osif od. The Hebrew phrases the choice as adding further: shall another battle be added, or should it stop? The root places the question at the threshold between continuing and ceasing.
ALSO GROWS
Yosef: He adds; may he add.
יוֹסֵף
The name comes from the same root, making addition the shared idea behind both the name and the question about continuing.
tosefet: Addition; supplement.
תּוֹסֶפֶת
This noun preserves the root’s sense of something added, clarifying the force of “yet again.”
אֶתְּנֶנּוּ
ettenenu
GROWS FROM
נ־ת־ן
n-t-n
Give, set, place; here, “I will give him/it.”
Under “deliver” is a verb of giving, so the promised outcome is concrete: Benjamin is handed into the speaker’s power. The wording leaves the violence visible even as it names the result as something given.
ALSO GROWS
natan: To give, set, or place.
נָתַן
This is the basic verb behind “deliver,” keeping the act of giving audible in the verse.
mattanah: A gift or present.
מַתָּנָה
This noun from the same root carries the idea of something given; here the object given over is an enemy in battle.
THE PATTERN
When the next movement is uncertain, the question is brought to God and the answer names a concrete next step.
And David enquired at the LORD, saying, Shall I pursue after this troop? shall I overtake them? And he answered him, Pursue: for thou shalt surely overtake them, and without fail recover all.And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.THE THREAD
Then David enquired of the LORD yet again. And the LORD answered him and said, Arise, go down to Keilah; for I will deliver the Philistines into thine hand.The Hebrew root נתן (natan, give) underlies “deliver” in both verses: each speaks of giving an enemy into someone’s hand. The echo makes the outcome concrete, placing divine direction beside an explicit military result.
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