Bible Strands
Judges 19:12
But his master replied, “We will not turn aside to the city of foreigners, where there are no Israelites. We will go on to Gibeah.”
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The master addresses his servant as they near Jebus with daylight fading, rejecting the servant’s proposal to lodge in a Jebusite settlement.
The words — נָסוּר (na.Sur) denotes a deliberate detour or turn away from a planned path, while נָכְרִי (na.khe.Ri) identifies the city as belonging to outsiders rather than the covenant community.
The thread — The text establishes a deliberate route that avoids foreign cities in favor of Israelite settlements, a travel pattern that recurs when the master continues toward Ramah in Judges 19:13 and when other figures throughout Judges seek specific tribal territories for refuge.
Why it lands — The verse requires the reader to track how geographic choices drive the narrative’s tension, noting that the master’s refusal to enter a non-Israelite city directly shapes the subsequent events in Gibeah.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And his master said unto him, We will not turn aside hither into the city of a stranger, that is not of the children of Israel; we will pass over to Gibeah.