What Does Joshua 1:6 Mean?
Hold fast and be firm, for you will place this people in the land as their portion, the land that I swore to their fathers to give them.
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
Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them.THE KEY
The courage here serves a whole people: it turns a sworn promise into an inheritance they can inhabit.
THE MEANING
This word meets the reader where a promise still has to become a place people can live in. Courage is bound to the work of making the land an inheritance for a people, so strength takes shape as something shared. The promise becomes a concrete allotment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The land is not Joshua’s private reward for being strong; his courage serves the people’s inheritance.
THE ROOT
תַּנְחִיל
tanḥil
GROWS FROM
נחל
To inherit, receive, or hold as a possession.
“place this people in the land as their portion” in this verse is tanḥil. The Hebrew verb comes from the same root as “inheritance”: Joshua’s act makes this people inheritors. The root holds both the gift and the act of bringing a people into possession, so the land is presented as a received share.
ALSO GROWS
naḥălāh: Inheritance, allotted possession.
נַחֲלָה
This noun names the inheritance that Joshua’s action brings to the people.
nāḥal: To inherit or receive as a possession.
נָחַל
This verb makes receiving the inheritance part of the same root as granting it.
חֲזַק
ḥazaq
GROWS FROM
חזק
To be strong, firm, or steadfast; to prevail.
“hold fast” in this verse is ḥazaq. The command’s strength shares its root with becoming firm and with strengthening another. Here, strength is oriented toward carrying the people’s inheritance into reality.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāzāq: Strong or firm.
חָזָק
The adjective gives the quality named by the command.
ḥizzēq: To strengthen or make firm.
חִזֵּק
This form shows the root can describe strengthening, not only possessing strength.
וֶאֱמָץ
ve'emats
GROWS FROM
אמץ
To be firm, resolute, or courageous.
“be firm” in this verse is ve'emats. Alongside חזק, this root gives courage the sense of durable resolve. The paired commands connect firmness within the leader to an inheritance distributed beyond him.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāmēṣ: Strong, firm, or courageous.
אָמֵץ
This form carries the quality named in the command to be courageous.
ʾimmēṣ: To strengthen or encourage.
אִמֵּץ
This form shows the root can describe making someone else firm.
THE PATTERN
A promise becomes a people’s inheritance through a concrete act of giving and receiving.
See, I have set the land before you. Go in and take hold of the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give to them and to their seed after them.The LORD is the portion of my share and of my cup; you hold fast my lot.And now, brothers, I set you alongside God and the word of his favor, which is able to build you as a house, and to give you a portion among all who have been set apart.THE THREAD
The cords fall to me in sweet places; indeed, my inheritance is beautiful.“Heritage” here is נַחֲלָה (naḥălāh), from the same נחל (n-ḥ-l) root as Joshua’s “cause to inherit.” Joshua names the work of bringing a people into possession; the psalm shows that inheritance as a goodly portion whose lines fall in pleasant places.
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