What Does Joshua 10:2 Mean?
For they feared greatly, because Gibeon was a great city, like one of the royal cities, and because it was greater than Ai, and all its men were mighty.
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
That they feared greatly, because Gibeon was a great city, as one of the royal cities, and because it was greater than Ai, and all the men thereof were mighty.THE KEY
Fear here rises from power that feels unmistakably real: the city is large, royal, greater than Ai, and filled with mighty men.
THE MEANING
Gibeon’s size, status, and fighting strength gather into one formidable picture. Fear rises as those signs of power fill the view; the verse lets the danger remain fully formidable.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that fear always means the danger is imagined: here, fear is tied to the city’s visible scale and strength.
THE ROOT
וַיִּירְאוּ
vayyir'u
GROWS FROM
ירא
y-r-ʾ
To fear, be afraid, or stand in awe.
“feared greatly” in this verse is vayyir'u. The verse intensifies this root with “greatly,” showing fear gathering around a threat that seems to fill the whole field of attention. Its branches can name both fear and awe, linking the response to the power a person perceives.
ALSO GROWS
yir'ah: Fear or awe
יִרְאָה
The noun holds the same response named by “feared” in a form that can describe an abiding state.
nora: Awe-inspiring or fearful
נוֹרָא
This branch describes something that evokes fear, echoing how Gibeon’s size and strength shape the response.
גְּדוֹלָה
gedolah
GROWS FROM
גדל
g-d-l
To grow or become great.
“great” in this verse is gedolah. The same root can describe greatness and a tower, so the word carries a sense of scale rising into view. Here, Gibeon’s greatness is reinforced by its royal standing and by being larger than Ai.
ALSO GROWS
gadal: To grow or become great
גָּדַל
It makes the city’s greatness feel like an accumulated scale, not a bare label.
migdal: Tower
מִגְדָּל
The tower belongs to the same word family of rising greatness, giving a concrete image for the scale that looms in the verse.
גִּבּוֹרִים
gibbōrîm
GROWS FROM
גבר
g-b-r
To be strong or prevail.
The word for mighty men grows from a root of strength and prevailing. Another branch can mean “man,” so English separates what Hebrew keeps close: the people are described through the strength they embody.
ALSO GROWS
gever: Man
גֶּבֶר
Its closeness to the word for a mighty man ties human presence to the strength emphasized here.
gābar: To be strong or prevail
גָּבַר
This verb names the force behind the description of Gibeon’s men as mighty.
THE PATTERN
When visible power fills the field of attention, fear becomes the immediate reading of what lies ahead.
And when the Great House drew near, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and look, the Egyptians were journeying after them, and they feared greatly, and the children of Israel cried out to the LORD.When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were shattered and greatly afraid.But looking at the force of the wind, he was seized with fear; and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, Lord, deliver me.THE THREAD
When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were shattered and greatly afraid.Both verses use the same Hebrew expression, “they feared greatly” (וַיִּירְאוּ מְאֹד, vayyir’u me’od). In Joshua the fear gathers around Gibeon’s size and mighty men; in Samuel it gathers around the Philistine, giving the same phrase to two encounters with overwhelming power.
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