Judges 19:17

17 When he looked and saw the traveler in the city square, the old man asked, “Where are you going? Where did you come from?”

Judges 19:17 in Other Translations

17 And when he had lifted up his eyes, he saw a wayfaring man in the street of the city: and the old man said, Whither goest thou? and whence comest thou?

17 And he lifted up his eyes and saw the traveler in the open square of the city. And the old man said, "Where are you going? And where do you come from?"

17 When he saw the travelers sitting in the town square, he asked them where they were from and where they were going.

17 When the old man looked up and saw the traveler in the town square, he said, "Where are you going? And where are you from?"

17 When he looked up and saw the traveler in the city square, the old man asked, "Where are you going, and where do you come from?"

Judges 19:17 Meaning and Commentary

Judges 19:17

And when he had lifted up his eyes
For it may be, as he came out of the field, he was musing and meditating with his eyes downwards directed, but coming into the city looked up:

he saw a wayfaring man in the street of the city;
whom he supposed to be a traveller and a stranger by his dress, and other circumstances, having never seen him before, and knowing pretty well the inhabitants of the place:

and the old man said, whither goest thou? and whence comest thou?
the meaning of the questions is, what place he was travelling to, and from whence he came last.

Judges 19:17 In-Context

15 There they stopped to spend the night. They went and sat in the city square, but no one took them in for the night.

16 That evening an old man from the hill country of Ephraim, who was living in Gibeah (the inhabitants of the place were Benjamites), came in from his work in the fields.

17 When he looked and saw the traveler in the city square, the old man asked, “Where are you going? Where did you come from?”

18 He answered, “We are on our way from Bethlehem in Judah to a remote area in the hill country of Ephraim where I live. I have been to Bethlehem in Judah and now I am going to the house of the LORD. No one has taken me in for the night.

19 We have both straw and fodder for our donkeys and bread and wine for ourselves your servants—me, the woman and the young man with us. We don’t need anything.”

Cross References

• 1. S Genesis 29:4