What Does Judges 9:50 Mean in the King James?

Then went Abimelech to Thebez, and encamped against Thebez, and took it.

Judges 9:50 · KJV

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 Hebrew for “took” shares its root with “be caught” and “trap”, conquest already carries the word-shape of entrapment.

THE MEANING

Force closes around the town: Abimelech (⁨אֲבִימֶלֶךְ⁩, ʾAvimelekh, “my father is king”) encamps and captures it. The verb for “takes” comes from the same Hebrew root that names being caught and a trap, so this seizure carries the image of enclosure within it.

THE ROOT

וַיִּלְכְּדָהּ

wayyilkedah

GROWS FROM

לכד

l-k-d

lakad: to catch, seize, capture

English “took” can sound like simple possession, but the Hebrew verb means to catch or capture. Its word family also names the caught one and the trap, linking the city’s seizure with the language of entrapment.

ALSO GROWS

lakad: to catch, seize, capture

לָכַד

This active form names the act of taking the city.

nilkad: caught or captured

נִלְכַּד

The passive form turns the action around: the one who takes and the one who is caught belong to the same word family.

malkodet: trap, snare

מַלְכֹּדֶת

The noun names the device that catches, showing how capture and entrapment grow from the same root.

THE PATTERN

Scripture pictures capture as a closing trap: what is seized becomes caught within another’s grasp.

Thou art snared with the words of thy mouth, thou art taken with the words of thy mouth.

Proverbs 6:2 · KJVThe same root as “took” describes a person caught by the words they themselves have spoken.

The heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made: in the net which they hid is their own foot taken.

Psalm 9:15 · KJVThe root for “took” describes a foot caught in a net its makers hid.

And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.

2 Timothy 2:26 · KJVA snare closes around its target, and the person within it is described as captured.

THE THREAD

The heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made: in the net which they hid is their own foot taken.

Psalm 9:15 · KJV

Psalm 9:15 uses the same root, ⁨לכד⁩ (lakad, “catch” or “capture”), for a foot caught in a hidden net. Judges uses it for a captured town; the psalm shows that same word closing around the people who laid the trap.

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