What Does Joshua 10:21 Mean?

And all the people turned back to the camp to Joshua at Makkedah in wholeness; none sharpened his tongue against any of the children of Israel.

Joshua 10:21 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

And all the people returned to the camp to Joshua at Makkedah in peace: none moved his tongue against any of the children of Israel.

THE KEY

The Hebrew for “moved his tongue” carries the edge of sharpening: their shalom includes no hostile tongue raised against them.

THE MEANING

The return is called shalom, wholeness, and no one sharpens a tongue against the people. Safety here means more than making it back alive; even hostile speech has no opening against them.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

Safety is only the absence of bodily harm, and hostile words are harmless. The verse includes freedom from verbal attack in the people’s wholeness.

THE ROOT

חָרַץ

charats

GROWS FROM

ח־ר־ץ

To cut sharply or sharpen; the same root also carries the senses of determining or decreeing.

“sharpened his tongue” in this verse is charats. The phrase pictures a tongue being sharpened, so speech itself carries an edge. The people return with no hostile word honed against them.

ALSO GROWS

charuts: Sharp, keen; also diligent.

חָרוּץ

This branch makes the cutting edge behind “moved” visible: the tongue is imagined as something that could be made keen against them.

necherats: Determined, decided, or decreed.

נֶחֱרָץ

The root also reaches toward what is settled; here, no hostile word is formed into an act against Israel.

שָׁלוֹם

shalom

GROWS FROM

ש־ל־ם

To be complete, sound, or intact.

“in wholeness” in this verse is shalom. Shalom frames the return as wholeness, not merely a pause in conflict. Beside the unsharpened tongue, it includes safe arrival without verbal attack.

ALSO GROWS

shalem: Whole, complete, or intact.

שָׁלֵם

This branch shows the sense of wholeness carried by the people’s return in shalom.

shillem: To repay or make good.

שִׁלֵּם

The root’s reach into making something complete adds depth to shalom as an intact condition, not simply quiet.

THE PATTERN

Scripture treats the tongue as a force that can wound, so safety from hostile speech is part of wholeness.

You hide them in the hiding place of your face, from the plots of man; you store them in a booth, from the striving of tongues.

Psalm 31:20 · SDVProtection from the strife of tongues is named as shelter, showing that safety includes relief from verbal attack.

There is one who blurts like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise is healing.

Proverbs 12:18 · SDVSpeech is pictured as a blade that can pierce, making the absence of a sharpened tongue a real form of safety.

And the tongue is fire, a world of crookedness. It is set among our limbs, staining the whole body and setting the wheel of becoming ablaze, and it is lit by Gehenna.

James 3:6 · SDVThe tongue is described as a force capable of spreading harm, echoing the danger absent from Israel’s return.

THE THREAD

But against any of the children of Israel, not a dog will sharpen its tongue, from man to beast, so that you may perceive that the LORD sets apart the Egyptians from Israel.

Exodus 11:7 · SDV

Joshua’s “moved his tongue” repeats the Hebrew verb used here: “not a dog move his tongue.” The shared sharpen/cut root makes verbal hostility visible as an edge that never gets raised against Israel.

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