What Does Joshua 10:35 Mean?
And they took it on that day, and struck it by the mouth of the sword, and all the living souls within it he devoted to destruction, according to all that he had done to Lachish.
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 they took it on that day, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were therein he utterly destroyed that day, according to all that he had done to Lachish.THE KEY
“All the souls” makes the totality brutally human: the conquest includes every living person in the city.
THE MEANING
The verse confronts you with a conquest that does not stop at taking a city: every living person inside is killed. “All the souls” keeps that totality attached to people, while “utterly destroyed” names the force inflicted on them.
THE ROOT
הֶחֱרִים
heḥĕrîm
GROWS FROM
חרם
To place under a ban or devote irrevocably; here, the consequence is destruction.
“devoted to destruction” in this verse is heḥĕrîm. The root carries the force of placing the inhabitants under a ban, and in this verse that status means they are killed. “Utterly destroyed” expresses a total act, not merely defeat in battle.
ALSO GROWS
ḥērem: A ban; something devoted or placed under a ban.
חֵרֶם
This noun shows the categorical force behind the verb: the city’s inhabitants are treated as under a total ban.
vayyaḥărîmû: They placed under the ban; they utterly destroyed.
וַיַּחֲרִימוּ
This form of the same verb appears in Joshua 6:21, linking the word to the same total destruction of a city’s inhabitants.
הַנֶּפֶשׁ
hannephesh
GROWS FROM
נפש
A living self: a person, life, or living being.
“living souls” in this verse is hannephesh. Here, nephesh names the living people in the city. The word keeps “souls” grounded in vulnerable human lives rather than leaving it as an abstraction.
ALSO GROWS
nephesh ḥayyah: Living being.
נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה
This phrase uses the same noun for a living creature, showing how nephesh can name a whole living being.
nāphaš: To be refreshed or rest.
נָפַשׁ
The related verb points to a living self that can be restored; here, those living selves are instead killed.
THE PATTERN
The herem formula frames conquest as total destruction, with the inhabitants treated as a population that is not spared.
And they devoted to destruction all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and donkey, with the mouth of the sword.But from the cities of these peoples, which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall keep alive nothing with breath. But you shall utterly devote them to destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded you.Now go and strike Amalek, and devote all that they have to destruction, and do not spare them; but put to death man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.THE THREAD
But from the cities of these peoples, which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall keep alive nothing with breath. But you shall utterly devote them to destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded you.Deuteronomy uses the same root, חרם (ḥ-r-m), for the command to destroy every living inhabitant of designated cities. That shared root reveals the categorical force behind “utterly destroyed” in Joshua: the verse describes total killing, not a limited defeat.
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