What Does Judges 21:23 Mean in the King James?
And the children of Benjamin did so, and took them wives, according to their number, of them that danced, whom they caught: and they went and returned unto their inheritance, and repaired the cities, and dwelt in them.
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
Benjamin returns to inherited land in a sentence that also names women seized by force, leaving restoration and dispossession joined.
THE MEANING
The verse places Benjamin’s return, rebuilding, and settled dwelling beside the seizure of women for wives. The community’s life continues, while the women remain unnamed and their voices are absent from the account. Restoration and coercion occupy the same line; one does not cancel the other.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that restoring a community’s place and continuity settles the whole account: the women’s seizure remains within the restoration the verse records.
THE ROOT
גָּזָלוּ
gazalu
GROWS FROM
גזל
To rob, seize by force, or take violently.
Under “caught” is the forceful sense of גזל: to seize as spoil. That meaning stays present as the women are called wives and the men return to their inheritance, placing one group’s continuity beside another’s dispossession.
ALSO GROWS
gazal: To rob or seize by force.
גָּזַל
This verb makes the force in the taking explicit.
gezelah: Robbery or property taken by force.
גְּזֵלָה
This related noun carries the sense of a taking that leaves a real claim behind.
נַחֲלָה
naḥalah
GROWS FROM
נחל
To inherit or take possession; an inherited holding.
The root ties Benjamin’s land to inherited possession and continuity. That return to what is held as an inheritance follows directly after the forcible taking of women, sharpening the contrast the verse leaves unresolved.
ALSO GROWS
naḥal: To inherit or take possession.
נָחַל
The verb describes receiving or holding a possession, the movement behind Benjamin’s return to its land.
naḥalah: An inheritance or inherited possession.
נַחֲלָה
The noun names the land as Benjamin’s continuing share, beside the women’s unchosen place in that continuity.
THE PATTERN
The security or advantage of those with power can rest on costs imposed on people whose consent or claim is pushed aside.
And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai.And it shall be, when their fathers or their brethren come unto us to complain, that we will say unto them, Be favourable unto them for our sakes: because we reserved not to each man his wife in the war: for ye did not give unto them at this time, that ye should be guilty.Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.THE THREAD
They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty: then I restored that which I took not away.Both passages turn on גזל (gazal), “to rob or seize by force.” Here women are seized; the psalm names the burden of restoring what the speaker never robbed, giving language to dispossession that Judges does not let the women voice.
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