What Does Judges 6:13 Mean in the King James?
And Gideon said unto him, Oh my Lord, if the LORD be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt? but now the LORD hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.
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 remembered exodus makes the present placement in Midian’s hand a question about why release has not ended constriction.
THE MEANING
The verse gives voice to the collision between the possibility that the LORD is with you and suffering that looks like abandonment. Remembered deliverance does not erase what has found you; it makes the question of presence more exact.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that remembered deliverance makes present pain unaskable; here the memory itself gives the question its force.
THE ROOT
מְצָאַתְנוּ
metsa’atnu
GROWS FROM
מצא
matsa
To find, meet, or encounter.
“befallen” in this verse is metsa’atnu. The Hebrew asks why all this has found the people, making the affliction something that has met or overtaken them. The verb leaves the cause unresolved; it preserves the question instead of explaining away the suffering.
ALSO GROWS
matsa: To find or encounter.
מָצָא
This is the verb in the question: all this has found them.
nimtsa: To be found or be present.
נִמְצָא
The same root can describe what is present or encountered, deepening the sense of events that have met the speaker.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
צרר
tsarar
To bind or press in; the related צַר (tsar) means narrow or constricted.
“Egypt” in this verse is Mitzrayim. Mitzrayim carries the narrowness of צַר (tsar, “narrow”), with the dual ending -ַיִם (-ayim). The remembered exodus is a movement up from constriction, so Midian’s present grip feels like the return of the narrow condition.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: Narrow, tight, constricted.
צַר
This is the narrowness carried in the remembered name Mitzrayim.
metsar: A strait, narrow place, or distress.
מֵצַר
This related word expresses distress as a constricted place, echoing the pressure Gideon describes.
וַיִּתְּנֵנוּ
vayittenenu
GROWS FROM
נתן
natan
To give, set, or place.
The KJV’s “delivered us into the hands” carries the concrete sense of giving or placing the people in Midian’s grasp. The word keeps the speaker’s troubling claim intact: the LORD has set them there, and the verse does not explain why.
ALSO GROWS
natan: To give, set, or place.
נָתַן
This is the verb used for placing the people into the hands of Midian.
mattanah: A gift, something given.
מַתָּנָה
This noun shares the root’s sense of giving, showing how broadly the root carries the act of placing or handing over.
THE PATTERN
A present wound and remembered deliverance can be named together in a question addressed to God.
Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah.O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save!And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.THE THREAD
For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the LORD.Gideon’s מְצָאַתְנוּ (metsa’atnu, “has found us”) comes from מָצָא (matsa, “find, encounter”); Proverbs uses that same verb for finding wisdom and life. The shared root widens “finding” beyond affliction without turning Gideon’s suffering into a hidden good.
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