What Does Judges 21:1 Mean in the King James?
Now the men of Israel had sworn in Mizpeh, saying, There shall not any of us give his daughter unto Benjamin to wife.
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
An oath made at Mizpah (מִצְפָּה, Mitspeh, “watch-place”) bars daughters from marriage with Benjamin (בִּנְיָמִין, Binyamin, “son of the right hand”), turning collective resolve into a boundary other people must live inside.
THE MEANING
A collective promise becomes a rule governing who may marry and who may give a daughter. Its force reaches beyond the speakers, placing daughters and Benjaminites inside a boundary they did not individually choose. Words spoken together can shape other people’s futures long after the moment of speaking.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a vow binds only the people who speak it: its consequences reach daughters and Benjaminites who did not make it.
THE ROOT
נִשְׁבַּע
nishbaʿ
GROWS FROM
שׁבע
To swear or bind by an oath; traditionally associated with שֶׁבַע (sheva, seven).
The oath-root carries a traditional echo of seven, giving sworn speech the resonance of a complete binding. This is more than a passing preference: the men’s words take the force of a vow intended to hold.
ALSO GROWS
shevuʿah: oath
שְׁבוּעָה
This noun names the binding promise at the center of the verse.
mashbiaʿ: one who makes another swear; one who adjures
מַשְׁבִּיעַ
The root can describe not only swearing but binding someone else by an oath.
sheva: seven
שֶׁבַע
The traditional association gives the oath an echo of completeness and solemn binding.
יִתֵּן
yitten
GROWS FROM
נתן
To give, set, or place.
The verb יִתֵּן (yitten, he gives) comes from נָתַן (natan, give, set, place). That added sense of placing makes the oath concrete: it governs the arrangement of daughters’ marriages, not just a stated opinion.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: gift
מַתָּנָה
This branch shows giving as a concrete act of handing something over.
natun: given, placed
נָתוּן
Its sense of being placed echoes how the vow restricts where a daughter may be given in marriage.
מִצְפָּה
Mitzpah
GROWS FROM
צפה
To watch or look out.
Mizpeh carries the sense of a watch-place, from a root meaning to look out. The vow is spoken at a place whose name gives the scene an added image of watching and a boundary held in view.
ALSO GROWS
tsopheh: watcher, one who looks out
צֹפֶה
This branch makes the act of watching explicit in the place-name’s root.
mitspeh: lookout, watchtower
מִצְפֶּה
This related form shows how the root names a place from which one watches.
THE PATTERN
A spoken vow can govern later choices long after the moment that produces it has passed.
If a man vow a vow unto the LORD, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth.Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.THE THREAD
How shall we do for wives for them that remain, seeing we have sworn by the LORD that we will not give them of our daughters to wives?This verse repeats the oath and the verb give, making the vow’s consequence explicit: the promise that forbids giving daughters leaves Benjamin without wives. The roots שׁבע (sh-b-ʿ, swear) and נתן (n-t-n, give, set, place) show how the spoken vow becomes a boundary over marriage.
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