What Does Judges 9:25 Mean in the King James?
And the men of Shechem set liers in wait for him in the top of the mountains, and they robbed all that came along that way by them: and it was told Abimelech.
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 ambush is meant for one man, but the road becomes a trap for everyone who passes.
THE MEANING
The men of Shechem (שְׁכֶם, Shekhem, “shoulder”) use the mountain heights to conceal an attack aimed at Abimelech (אֲבִימֶלֶךְ, Avimelekh, “my father is king”), but every traveler passing on the road becomes prey. The verse exposes how concealed harm reaches beyond its chosen target, and the report brings that hidden violence into the open.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that hidden violence stays confined to its chosen target collapses here: every passerby is robbed.
THE ROOT
מְאָרְבִים
meʾorvim
GROWS FROM
ארב
ʾ-r-b
To lie in wait; to ambush
“liers in wait” in this verse is meʾorvim. Hebrew names the hidden position and the act of waiting with one root: the ambushers are people lying in wait, while a maʾarav is the ambush itself. The same root in Psalm 10:8 links this scene to a wider pattern in which concealment turns shared space into a trap.
ALSO GROWS
ʾorev: One lying in wait
אֹרֵב
It names the hidden attacker as someone defined by the ambush.
maʾarav: Ambush; lurking place
מַאֲרָב
It names the concealed position itself, the trap that turns the road unsafe.
וַיִּגְזְלוּ
vayyigzelu
GROWS FROM
גזל
g-z-l
To seize by force; to rob
“robbed” in this verse is vayyigzelu. The verb describes forceful taking, not a chance loss along the road. Because its object is everyone passing by, the text shows repeated predation on ordinary passage.
ALSO GROWS
gazal: To rob; seize by force
גָּזַל
This is the action the men carry out against the travelers.
gezel: Robbery; plunder
גֵּזֶל
The related noun names the seizure as a continuing condition of the road.
THE PATTERN
Concealed predation turns a shared route into danger for whoever passes through.
If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor.And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.THE THREAD
He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor.Psalm 10:8 uses מַאֲרָב (maʾarav, “ambush”) for the “lurking places,” from the same root as the “liers in wait” here. Judges shows the road exposed to every passer; the psalm widens the same concealed posture toward the innocent and poor.
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