What Does Judges 7:10 Mean in the King James?
But if thou fear to go down, go thou with Phurah thy servant down to the host:
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
Fear does not cancel the descent; the answer is to let someone go down with you.
THE MEANING
Fear is real at the edge of the dangerous step, and the way forward includes another person beside you. The descent remains; what changes is that you do not enter alone. Movement is still possible with fear present and help close at hand.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the belief that fear makes you unfit to move or that courage requires going alone. Here the feared step remains, and companionship enters it.
THE ROOT
יָרֵא
yārēʾ
GROWS FROM
י־ר־א
y-r-ʾ
To fear, revere, or stand in awe; here, fear of danger.
English separates fear and descent, but the Hebrew forms begin with the same y-r sound: yare (y-r-ʾ) and yarad (y-r-d), an echo that places fear at the lip of the downward step without making them one root. Here yare names fear of danger, so the verse meets fear directly instead of recasting it as reverence.
ALSO GROWS
yirʾah: Fear, reverence, or awe
יִרְאָה
This noun carries fear and reverence under the same root, while the verse’s danger makes fear the live sense.
noraʾ: Fearsome or awe-inspiring
נוֹרָא
This branch shows the root’s range from fear to awe; here the feared descent is not an encounter with God but a real danger.
לָרֶדֶת
laredet
GROWS FROM
י־ר־ד
y-r-d
To descend or go down.
The same root names both the feared descent and the command to go down. The answer does not erase the downward step; Gideon makes it with Phurah beside him.
ALSO GROWS
yored: Descending; one who descends
יֹרֵד
The participle keeps the descent as an unfolding movement, echoing the step that remains ahead.
yeridah: Descent
יְרִידָה
This noun makes the movement itself visible: the verse repeats the descent while changing who accompanies it.
THE PATTERN
A vulnerable step can remain ahead while presence makes it bearable.
And the LORD, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy;Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.THE THREAD
What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.Both verses use יָרֵא (yare, “fear”). Judges keeps the feared descent in view and provides a companion; the psalm places trust in the same moment fear remains.
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