What Does Joshua 10:32 Mean?
And the LORD gave Lachish into the hand of Israel, who took it on the second day, and struck it with the mouth of the sword, and all the living souls within it, according to all that he had done to Libnah.
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 the LORD delivered Lachish into the hand of Israel, which took it on the second day, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were therein, according to all that he had done to Libnah.THE KEY
The verse makes “delivered” a handover whose stated consequence is the sword reaching every living person in Lachish.
THE MEANING
The verse places the LORD’s handover of Lachish beside Israel’s capture and killing by the sword, reaching every living soul in the city. Its closing comparison makes this slaughter part of a repeated sequence: the same treatment has already been done to Libnah.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that every act described as divine deliverance brings safety to the people involved: here, the handover is followed by the killing of every living person in Lachish.
THE ROOT
וַיִּתֵּן
wayyitten
GROWS FROM
נתן
Give, put, or set.
“gave” in this verse is wayyitten. The verb’s basic motion is giving or placing. The verse specifies where Lachish is placed, into Israel’s hand, and then states what that transfer means for the city.
ALSO GROWS
natan: Give, put, set.
נָתַן
The verb translated “delivered” is a form of this root: Lachish is given into Israel’s hand.
mattanah: Gift, something given.
מַתָּנָה
This noun from the same root keeps the act of giving visible beneath the verse’s transfer language.
הַנֶּפֶשׁ
hannefesh
GROWS FROM
נפשׁ
Living self or person; the root also forms a verb meaning to rest or be refreshed.
“living souls” in this verse is hannefesh. Nefesh names a living soul, a whole living self or person. Here “all the souls” makes the scale of the violence concrete: every living person in the city is struck.
ALSO GROWS
nefesh: Living soul, person, life.
נֶפֶשׁ
This is the word used for those struck in Lachish; it names living beings, not an abstract idea.
naphash: Rest, be refreshed (Exodus 23:12).
נָפַשׁ
The same root also appears in a word for rest or refreshment, a striking contrast beside the fate of every nefesh in this verse.
הַחֶרֶב
hacherev
GROWS FROM
חרב
The root’s range includes becoming dry or desolate; חֶרֶב names a sword.
The Hebrew phrase behind “edge of the sword” is literally “mouth of the sword” (פִּי הַחֶרֶב). Alongside forms from the same consonants meaning desolate or laid waste, the image holds the weapon and the devastation it brings together.
ALSO GROWS
charav: Become desolate or ruined.
חָרַב
This form from the same consonants echoes the destruction named in the verse.
charev: Desolate, dried up.
חָרֵב
This related form carries desolation into the same root family as the sword named here.
THE PATTERN
In conquest texts, “delivering” a city or people into Israel’s hand is narrated as the transfer that precedes killing by the sword.
And the LORD gave it, and its king, into the hand of Israel; and he struck it with the mouth of the sword, and all the living souls within it; he left none remaining in it, but did to its king as he did to the king of Jericho.And Judah went up, and the LORD gave the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hand, and they struck down ten thousand men of them in Bezek.When the LORD your God gives them before you, you shall strike them and devote them to destruction. You shall cut no covenant with them, nor show them favor.THE THREAD
And the LORD gave it, and its king, into the hand of Israel; and he struck it with the mouth of the sword, and all the living souls within it; he left none remaining in it, but did to its king as he did to the king of Jericho.Both verses use נתן (natan, give or place) for the LORD’s handover: Lachish and Libnah are each given into Israel’s hand. The repeated wording joins that giving to what follows, the sword and the killing of every nefesh in the city.
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