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Judges 18:5

in Judges 18

Then they said to him, “Please inquire of God to determine whether we will have a successful journey.”

BSB

The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾

ASV

And they said unto him, Ask counsel, we pray thee, of God, that we may know whether our way which we go shall be prosperous.

KJV

And they said unto him, Ask counsel, we pray thee, of God, that we may know whether our way which we go shall be prosperous.

This verse in Judges 18

Commentary

6 notes on this verse

A commentator

Adam Clarke

1762–1832

Commentary on the Bible · Written before 1832.

Ask counsel - of God - As the Danites use the word אלהים Elohim here for God, we are necessarily led to believe that they meant the true God; especially as the Levite answers, Jdg 18:6, Before the Lord (יהוה Yehovah) is your way. Though the former word may be sometimes applied to idols, whom their votaries clothed with the attributes of God; yet the latter is never applied but to the true God alone.

This site's exposition

they recognized the voice of the young Levite

on Judges 18:3-6

They know the Levite by his speech, which Gill takes for an accent they knew, while Barnes reads the Hebrew as hearing a voice and turning toward it. They ask him to “inquire of God”, as Israel does at 1:1 and 20:18 by the way Numbers 27:21 appoints, but at a private shrine. The priest answers “Go in peace”, and the chapter records no word from God behind it.

This site's exposition

Please inquire of God

Barnes holds that the sight of the ephod and household idols gave the Danites the idea of asking. Adam Clarke notes that they say God, Elohim, and the Levite answers with the LORD, YHWH, a name used of the true God alone. Both sides mean Israel's God.

The record, by era

The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice

And they said unto him, ask counsel, we pray thee, of God,....

The Nineteenth Century2 voices

A commentator

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

1802–1910

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)

proposed

Recognizing his priest as one of their former acquaintances, or perhaps by his provincial dialect, they eagerly enlisted his services in ascertaining the result of their present expedition. His answer, though apparently promising, was delusive, and really as ambiguous as those of the heathen oracles.
The sight of the ephod and teraphim suggested the notion of inquiring of God.

The words behind it

12 Hebrew words

Every Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.

  • וַיֹּ֥אמְרוּand they said

    vaiyomeruH559 →5305 times

  • ל֖וֹto <the> him

    lo

  • שְׁאַל־enquire

    sheal-H7592 →171 times

  • נָ֣אplease

    na'H4994 →404 times

  • בֵאלֹהִ֑יםby God

    velohimH430 →2601 times

  • וְנֵ֣דְעָ֔הso let us know

    venedeahH3045 →945 times

  • הֲתַצְלִ֣יחַ¿ will it succeed

    hatatzliachH6743 →65 times

  • דַּרְכֵּ֔נוּjourney our

    darkenuH1870 →707 times

  • אֲשֶׁ֥רwhich

    ʾasherH834 →5497 times

  • אֲנַ֖חְנוּwe

    ʾanachnuH587 →120 times

  • הֹלְכִ֥ים[are] going

    holekhimH1980 →1546 times

  • עָלֶֽיהָ׃on it

    ʾaleihaH5921 →5755 times

A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.

The walk

8 stops

Each card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.

  • Through

    Isaiah 30:1

    “Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the LORD, “to those who carry out a plan that is not Mine, who form an alliance, but against My will, heaping up sin upon sin.

    it leads to

    • Isaiah 65:2

      All day long I have held out My hands to an obstinate people who walk in the wrong path, who follow their own imaginations,

    • Isaiah 1:2

      Listen, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the LORD has spoken: “I have raised children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against Me.

    • Isaiah 63:10

      But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit. So He turned and became their enemy, and He Himself fought against them.

    • Hosea 7:13

      Woe to them, for they have strayed from Me! Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against Me! Though I would redeem them, they speak lies against Me.

    • Romans 2:5

      But because of your hard and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

  • Through

    1 Kings 22:5

    But Jehoshaphat also said to the king of Israel, “Please inquire first for the word of the LORD.”

    it leads to

    • Proverbs 3:5–6

      Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding;

    • 2 Chronicles 18:4–5

      But Jehoshaphat also said to the king of Israel, “Please inquire first for the word of the LORD.”

  • Through

    Hosea 4:12

    My people consult their wooden idols, and their divining rods inform them. For a spirit of prostitution leads them astray and they have played the harlot against their God.

    it leads to

    • Jeremiah 2:27

      say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’ For they have turned their backs to Me and not their faces, yet in the time of trouble…

About Judges

Jael, Deborah and Barak, Salomon de Bray, 1635. Public domain.
Jael, Deborah and Barak, Salomon de Bray, 1635. Public domain.

This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament and John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763).