What Does Judges 20:8 Mean in the King James?
And all the people arose as one man, saying, We will not any of us go to his tent, neither will we any of us turn into his house.
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 crowd becomes “one man” as each person refuses to retreat into the privacy of his own tent or house.
THE MEANING
The verse holds a people standing as one and each person refusing to withdraw. That shared resolve becomes a decision for war in the surrounding passage, so this unity carries the force and cost of violence as well as solidarity.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Unity does not make each person disappear into a faceless crowd: the repeated “each man” keeps every individual visible within the collective decision.
THE ROOT
אֶחָד
echad
GROWS FROM
אחד
One; united as a single whole.
The Hebrew says כְּאִישׁ אֶחָד (ke’ish echad, “as one man”), then repeats אִישׁ (ish, “each man”) in both refusals. The one body is made of distinct people, each refusing to withdraw into private shelter.
ALSO GROWS
echad: One; a single whole.
אֶחָד
The people stand together as one, turning a crowd into a single acting body.
achdut: Unity; oneness.
אַחְדוּת
This branch makes explicit the shared state expressed by “as one man.”
iḥud: Unification; joining into one.
אִחוּד
The verse shows unification taking shape through a common refusal to disperse.
THE PATTERN
A shared resolve gathers many individuals into one acting body and interrupts their return to private life.
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.So all the men of Israel were gathered against the city, knit together as one man.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
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.Both verses call a people אֶחָד (echad, “one”), showing how unity magnifies what a group can do. Oneness itself does not determine the aim; it gives greater force to the purpose the group shares.
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