What Does Judges 8:15 Mean in the King James?
And he came unto the men of Succoth, and said, Behold Zebah and Zalmunna, with whom ye did upbraid me, saying, Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna now in thine hand, that we should give bread unto thy men that are weary?
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
At Succoth, the “shelters”, the men who deny bread to the weary face the captured kings they demanded as proof before helping.
THE MEANING
The reader stands in the moment when withheld bread is answered by visible proof: Gideon now holds the kings whose capture the men had made a condition for helping. Their refusal left weary bodies hungry, and its consequences are present in the confrontation.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that basic care can be withheld until someone proves they are worth helping; the demand for proof is itself part of the choice being exposed.
THE ROOT
לֶחֶם
lechem
GROWS FROM
לחם
The consonants לחם appear in lechem, “bread,” and in lacham, “to fight”; their historical relationship is uncertain, but the shared sound-shape places sustenance beside conflict in this verse.
The English gives you bread and battle as separate ideas. In Hebrew, lechem (“bread”) and lacham (“fight”) share the consonants לחם, so the denied food stands within the struggle the weary men are enduring. This is a consonant echo, not a claim that the words’ etymological relationship is settled.
ALSO GROWS
lacham: to fight or contend
לָחַם
Its shared consonants place the men’s need for bread beside the conflict in which they are exhausted.
milḥāmāh: battle, war
מִלְחָמָה
This related word makes the conflict around the bread audible in the Hebrew sound-shape.
סֻכּוֹת
Sukkot
GROWS FROM
סכך
Succoth is the plural of sukkah, “booth” or “shelter”; the related verb סכך (sakak) means “to cover.”
“Succoth” in this verse is Sukkot. The place-name carries the sense of booths or shelters. That meaning sharpens the scene: at a place named for shelter, weary men ask for bread and are turned away.
ALSO GROWS
sukkāh: booth, shelter
סֻכָּה
This singular form gives the place-name its sheltering sense.
sakak: to cover
סָכַךְ
The related covering verb shows the root’s image of a shelter formed by covering.
THE PATTERN
When care for the exhausted is made conditional on proof or status, the refusal itself becomes part of the reckoning.
If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink:For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?THE THREAD
And he said unto the men of Succoth, Give, I pray you, loaves of bread unto the people that follow me; for they be faint, and I am pursuing after Zebah and Zalmunna, kings of Midian.This is the request that the men later quote back at Gideon: bread for exhausted people pursuing the kings. The repeated word “bread” makes the refusal concrete before the confrontation shows what the men had demanded as proof.
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