What Does Joshua 1:15 Mean?
Until the LORD gives your brothers a place to rest, as he has given you, and they also have taken hold of the land that the LORD your God is giving them, then you will turn back to the land of your holding and take hold of it, the land that Moses, the servant of the LORD, gave you on this side of the Jordan toward the sunrise.
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
Until the LORD have given your brethren rest, as he hath given you, and they also have possessed the land which the LORD your God giveth them: then ye shall return unto the land of your possession, and enjoy it, which Moses the LORD’s servant gave you on this side Jordan toward the sunrising.THE KEY
The verse reveals that one group’s return waits until their brothers also rest and inherit their land.
THE MEANING
Your return is bound to the rest and inheritance of your brothers; your own place remains within a shared completion. The land is given by the LORD, and the verse holds its enjoyment in a sequence where the whole people first receives its portion.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
“I can enjoy my own place while my brothers remain without rest or inheritance.”
THE ROOT
וְיָרְשׁוּ
veyarshu
GROWS FROM
ירש
y-r-sh
To inherit or take possession; in some contexts, to dispossess.
“have taken hold of” in this verse is veyarshu. The brothers “possess” their land, and later the returning tribes “enjoy” theirs, but both verbs come from ירשׁ (y-r-sh), inherit or take possession. The English shifts from possession to enjoyment while Hebrew keeps both groups inside the same inheritance.
ALSO GROWS
yerushah: An inheritance or property received as one’s portion.
יְרֻשָּׁה
It makes the land more than a place to enjoy: it is a portion each person receives.
morashah: An inheritance held as a continuing possession.
מוֹרָשָׁה
It echoes the verse’s movement from land given by God to land each group takes as its own.
יָנִיחַ
yānîaḥ
GROWS FROM
נוח
n-w-ḥ
To settle, rest, or come to rest; in this causative form, to bring someone to rest.
“a place to rest” in this verse is yānîaḥ. The LORD is the one who brings the brothers into settled rest. Their rest is the condition the verse waits for before the others return to their own land.
ALSO GROWS
nûaḥ: To come to rest or settle in a place.
נוּחַ
It shows rest as arriving at a settled state, which precedes the tribes’ return.
menuchah: Rest or a place of rest.
מְנוּחָה
It carries the sense of rest becoming a place where someone can settle.
אֲחֻזַּתְכֶם
aḥuzzatkhem
GROWS FROM
אחז
ʾ-ḥ-z
To grasp, hold, or take hold.
“holding” in this verse is aḥuzzatkhem. The “land of your possession” uses a different Hebrew root from the brothers’ “possessed” land. The verse places their inheritance beside the returning tribes’ held estate, binding both to the same shared sequence.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāḥaz: To take hold of or retain.
אָחַז
It gives “possession” the concrete sense of holding land.
ʾaḥuzzah: Property held as an estate or possession.
אֲחֻזָּה
It names the land to which the tribes return after their brothers have received rest and inheritance.
THE PATTERN
Rest becomes a shared condition when the whole household or people is considered, rather than a private reward.
We will not turn back to our houses until the children of Israel have inherited, each man his inheritance.Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall stop, that your ox and your donkey may settle, and the son of your handmaid and the stranger may be refreshed.Therefore a Sabbath settling remains for the people of God.THE THREAD
We will not turn back to our houses until the children of Israel have inherited, each man his inheritance.Joshua’s “ye shall return” and Numbers’ “We will not return” share the Hebrew root שׁוּב (shuv), meaning return or turn. Numbers makes the condition unmistakable: homecoming waits until each Israelite has received an inheritance.
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