What Does Judges 7:14 Mean in the King James?
And his fellow answered and said, This is nothing else save the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel: for into his hand hath God delivered Midian, and all 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
The enemy names a sword, but the verse reveals the deeper reversal as a transfer: God has already placed the whole host into Gideon’s hand.
THE MEANING
What looks like a force too large to face is not the final authority over your present. The verse makes the outcome a transfer: God places the whole host into Gideon’s hand, and even the enemy’s fearful interpretation names the cutter-down.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief is that visible opposition owns the outcome until you defeat it by your own strength; here, the decisive change is already described as God placing the whole host into a human hand.
THE ROOT
נָתַן
natan
GROWS FROM
נתן
give, set, place
The word translated “delivered” carries the motion of giving, setting, or placing. Midian is pictured as placed into Gideon’s hand; the same root forms a word for a gift, so the verse describes the defeat as a transfer made by God.
ALSO GROWS
natan: give, set, place
נָתַן
This is the verb in the verse, making “delivered” a concrete act of placing the host into Gideon’s hand.
mattanah: gift, something given
מַתָּנָה
A gift is something given; this branch keeps the root’s language of transfer visible beneath “delivered.”
גִּדְעוֹן
Gidʿon
GROWS FROM
גדע
cut off, hew down
Gideon’s name is commonly connected to the verb for cutting down or hewing off. The dreamer’s “sword of Gideon” therefore joins the weapon to the cutting-down already carried in the name.
ALSO GROWS
gadaʿ: cut down, hew off
גָּדַע
This verb shares the name’s root and names the action the dreamer associates with Gideon’s sword.
gaduʿ: cut down, hewn off
גָּדוּעַ
This form describes the result of the same action, extending the root from the one who cuts down to what has been brought down.
THE PATTERN
What appears weak or outnumbered can carry the force that reverses a stronger power.
And Jonathan said to the young man that bare his armour, Come, and let us go over unto the garrison of these uncircumcised: it may be that the LORD will work for us: for there is no restraint to the LORD to save by many or by few.But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.THE THREAD
And the three hundred blew the trumpets, and the LORD set every man’s sword against his fellow, even throughout all the host: and the host fled to Beth-shittah in Zererath, and to the border of Abel-meholah, unto Tabbath.The same word for “sword” named here becomes the instrument of the next verse, but every sword is turned against a fellow soldier. The feared defeat is carried out through Midian’s own force, while this verse has already described the whole host as placed into Gideon’s hand.
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