What Does Exodus 23:31 Mean?
And I will place your borders from the Sea of Reeds to the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the River, for I will give the dwellers of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out from before you.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee.THE KEY
The boundary is secured by transferring the land’s inhabitants into another’s hand and driving them out.
THE MEANING
The verse presents a defined territory as given to one people while the people already living there are handed over and expelled. Its language of provision carries dispossession inside it: the boundary and the force that enforces it belong to the same sentence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that a promised inheritance is automatically innocent or cost-free: here, the claim is made real through the transfer and expulsion of people already living there.
THE ROOT
וְגֵרַשְׁתָּמוֹ
wəgērāštāmô
GROWS FROM
גרש
to drive out, expel, or put away
“drive them out from before you” in this verse is wəgērāštāmô. The verb for driving the inhabitants out comes from גרש, a root also used for divorce: in both cases, someone is put away from a place or relationship. The verse’s territorial promise therefore names an actual removal, not just a change of boundary.
ALSO GROWS
gērûšîn: divorce or dismissal
גֵּרוּשִׁין
This branch keeps the root’s force of putting someone away, making the expulsion in the verse harder to soften into a neutral transfer.
megorāsh: one who is expelled
מְגֹרָשׁ
This form names the person on the receiving end of the action: the verse’s promised space for one group is made through others being driven out.
נָתַתִּי
natattî
GROWS FROM
נתן
to give, place, or set
The word translated “deliver” is נתן, “give” or “place”: the inhabitants are placed into the recipients’ hand. The root also forms the word for “gift,” showing how language of giving can describe a transfer that involves people being coerced.
ALSO GROWS
mattān: gift
מַתָּן
This branch reveals the root’s language of giving beneath the verse’s transfer of control over the inhabitants.
netînâ: giving or placement
נְתִינָה
This form makes the act of setting something into another’s possession visible in the verse’s wording.
גְּבֻלְךָ
gĕvulĕkha
GROWS FROM
גבל
to mark off or set a boundary
“borders” in this verse is gĕvulĕkha. גְּבוּל can name both a border and the territory defined by it, so the boundary is also a claim over the space it encloses. Here, the verse specifies the reach of a grant that rests on removing its present inhabitants.
ALSO GROWS
gĕvul: border or territory
גְּבוּל
This noun holds the dividing line and the space within it together, clarifying what is being claimed.
higbîl: to set a boundary or limit
הִגְבִּיל
This verb shows the root’s action of defining an extent, which is the first act named in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Scripture treats habitation as bounded: land is defined by its limits and by the people who occupy or are removed from it.
Every place where the sole of your foot treads will be yours. From the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, to the sea at your back will be your border.He drove out the nations before them, and let an inheritance fall to them by the measuring cord, and settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.And he made from one blood every nation of humankind to settle upon all the face of the earth, marking out their fitted seasons and setting the boundary stones of their dwelling.THE THREAD
By small measures I will drive them out from before you, until you are fruitful and take hold of the land.“Drive them out” in both verses comes from גרש, the root of expulsion. The preceding verse names the gradual pace; this one gives the territory’s bounds and states that the inhabitants are driven out.
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