What Does Judges 21:4 Mean in the King James?
And it came to pass on the morrow, that the people rose early, and built there an altar, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings.
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
One offering rises; the other carries the root of wholeness, so the altar holds ascent and restoration together.
THE MEANING
You encounter a scene that moves from rising at daybreak to building a place of offering. What ascends is brought alongside an offering whose name carries wholeness, giving that wholeness a shared, tangible form.
THE ROOT
שְׁלָמִים
shelāmîm
GROWS FROM
שלם
š-l-m
To be complete or whole; to make whole.
The word translated “peace offerings” belongs to the same family as wholeness and completeness. The verse places that root at the altar, so wholeness appears as something given concrete form in shared life.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being.
שָׁלוֹם
This familiar branch shows that the offering’s name carries more than a feeling of calm; it is linked to a state of wholeness.
shalem: Whole, intact, complete.
שָׁלֵם
This branch makes the root’s sense of completeness audible within the name of the offering.
עֹלוֹת
ʿōlōt
GROWS FROM
עלה
ʿ-l-h
To rise, ascend, or go up.
“burnt offerings” in this verse is ʿōlōt. The Hebrew name for a burnt offering, עֹלָה (ʿōlāh), comes from the verb for rising. Beside the shelamim, the verse holds two movements together: what ascends and what is named for wholeness.
ALSO GROWS
ʿōlāh: A burnt offering; literally, that which ascends.
עֹלָה
The offering’s name preserves the upward movement described by its root.
ʿăliyyāh: Ascent or going up.
עֲלִיָּה
This related word makes the shared image of rising explicit, illuminating the motion carried by עֹלוֹת (ʿōlōt).
THE PATTERN
Wholeness takes visible form through offerings that rise and through relationships brought back into unity.
And if his oblation be a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offer it of the herd; whether it be a male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the LORD.For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.THE THREAD
And if his oblation be a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offer it of the herd; whether it be a male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the LORD.Leviticus names the same kind of offering with the same Hebrew root behind “peace offerings.” That root carries wholeness and completeness, giving the word in Judges the sense of wholeness brought into a concrete offering.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us