What Does Judges 9:56 Mean in the King James?
Thus God rendered the wickedness of Abimelech, which he did unto his father, in slaying his seventy brethren:
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 verb says God “caused it to return”: judgment is the harm Abimelech sent outward coming back to its source.
THE MEANING
The verse holds open now that harm is not erased by power or time: God brings Abimelech’s violence against his father’s house back upon him. The name Abimelech means “my father is king,” echoing the royal claim pressed against that household.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that power can separate a person from the harm they cause and leave it behind. The verse shows that harm returning under God’s judgment.
THE ROOT
וַיָּשֶׁב
wayyāshev
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
shuv
To return or turn back; in this verb form, to cause something to return.
“Rendered” carries the judicial sense, while the Hebrew verb also carries the movement of return. God brings Abimelech’s own evil back upon him, making judgment the return of the harm he sent outward.
ALSO GROWS
hēshîv: Bring back, restore, or return
הֵשִׁיב
This causative form makes the root’s returning action explicit, as it is in the verse.
teshuvah: Return or turning back
תְּשׁוּבָה
The same root names a turning back, illuminating how the verse presents consequence as something that comes back to its source.
רָעַת
raʿat
GROWS FROM
רָעַע
raʿaʿ
To be bad or harmful; the word family can name evil, harm, or calamity.
The word includes moral evil and the harm or calamity it brings. Here the wickedness is not an abstract label: it is bound to the violence against Abimelech’s father’s house that returns upon him.
ALSO GROWS
raʿ: Bad or evil
רַע
This form names the moral character of what Abimelech does.
raʿah: Evil, harm, or calamity
רָעָה
This form carries the concrete consequence of evil, connecting Abimelech’s wrongdoing with the harm that comes back upon him.
THE PATTERN
Violence and wrongdoing return upon the one who sends them out.
Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him.For the day of the LORD is near upon all the heathen: as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee: thy reward shall return upon thine own head.Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.THE THREAD
His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate.The Hebrew verb translated “rendered” in Judges and “return” in the Psalm comes from שׁוּב (shuv), meaning “to return.” The Psalm makes the same root’s movement visible: violence comes back upon the one who set it in motion.
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