What Does Judges 21:16 Mean in the King James?
Then the elders of the congregation said, How shall we do for wives for them that remain, seeing the women are destroyed out of Benjamin?
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
After annihilation, the elders’ question measures the community’s future through the surviving men’s need for wives.
THE MEANING
You hear the assembly count the men as those left over and name women as destroyed from Benjamin. Its first voiced question is how to find wives for the survivors; women appear as the missing condition of the men’s future, without a voice of their own. The verse keeps the annihilation and the terms of the proposed repair visible together.
THE ROOT
נִשְׁמְדָה
nishmedah
GROWS FROM
שׁמד
sh-m-d
To annihilate or wipe out; in this form, to be annihilated.
“destroyed” in this verse is nishmedah. The root’s active branches name destruction and its agent, while this verse’s passive form leaves the agent outside the sentence. The clause names what happens to the women before the elders ask what to do for the men who remain.
ALSO GROWS
hishmid: To destroy or annihilate
הִשְׁמִיד
This active form names the act whose result appears here in the passive.
mashmid: Destroyer; one who annihilates
מַשְׁמִיד
This branch names an agent, though the verse itself does not identify one.
לַנּוֹתָרִים
lan-notarim
GROWS FROM
יתר
y-t-r
To remain, be left over, or be in excess.
“remain” in this verse is lan-notarim. The men are named through what remains after loss; this is a word for being left over, not for wholeness. Beside the annihilation of women, the root makes the verse’s survivor count audible.
ALSO GROWS
yether: Remainder, rest, or surplus
יֶתֶר
This noun shows how the root can name what is left after something is removed.
yoter: More or additional
יוֹתֵר
This branch carries the root’s sense of what remains beyond a measure.
הָעֵדָה
ha’edah
GROWS FROM
יעד
y-ʿ-d
To appoint, designate, or meet at an appointed gathering.
The elders speak as an assembled body, so the response to the violence is being worked out collectively. The word’s family links the congregation with appointed meetings, while the women themselves remain unheard in this verse.
ALSO GROWS
ya’ad: To appoint, designate, or arrange a meeting
יָעַד
This verb connects the assembly to the act of gathering by appointment.
mo’ed: An appointed time, meeting, or place
מוֹעֵד
This branch shows the root’s connection to a designated gathering.
THE PATTERN
Communal and political power repeatedly makes vulnerable people bear the cost of preserving its order.
Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing.So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men.THE THREAD
And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.“Left” in Genesis shares the root יתר (yathar, remain or be left over) with “them that remain” here. Genesis names one person left alone; Judges uses the same root for the surviving men as a group, making the survivor count audible at the root level.
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