What Does Joshua 11:13 Mean?
But as for the cities that stood on their mounds, Israel burned none of them, except Hazor alone, which Joshua burned.
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
But as for the cities that stood still in their strength, Israel burned none of them, save Hazor only; that did Joshua burn.THE KEY
The Hebrew pictures cities standing on their own mounds, making Hazor’s burning a singled-out exception among places left intact.
THE MEANING
You meet a sharply drawn boundary: the cities standing on their mounds are left unburned, while Hazor alone is singled out for fire. The verse holds sparing and destruction in one line, without blurring the exception into a general sweep.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that all the cities are burned: the verse explicitly marks them as spared and names Hazor alone as the exception.
THE ROOT
שָׂרְפוּ
śārfū
GROWS FROM
שרף
ś-r-p
Burn, consume with fire.
The same root appears first in the plural negation about Israel, then in the singular assertion about Joshua: no cities are burned, except Hazor, which he burns. The root makes the exception the sentence’s hinge and keeps the act of consuming specific.
ALSO GROWS
śərēfāh: Burning, conflagration.
שְׂרֵפָה
The noun keeps the verse’s consuming fire visible as an act, not merely a change of status.
śārāf: Fiery serpent, or “burning one.”
שָׂרָף
This branch preserves the root’s sense of burning heat and gives the fire in the verse a vivid word-family echo.
הָעֹמְדֹת עַל־תִּלָּם
hāʿomdōt ʿal tillām
GROWS FROM
עמד
ʿ-m-d
Stand, remain in place.
“stood on their mounds” in this verse is hāʿomdōt ʿal tillām. The Hebrew phrase adds a physical location: the cities stand על תלם (ʿal tillām, on their own mounds). Beneath the KJV’s “in their strength” is the image of settlements remaining on their raised sites, set against the one city singled out for fire.
ALSO GROWS
heʿĕmīd: Cause to stand; set up.
הֶעֱמִיד
This causative form shows the same root can describe something being made to stand, sharpening the verse’s image of cities remaining in place.
ʿammūd: Pillar, column.
עַמּוּד
A pillar is something that stands, extending the root’s image of upright persistence.
THE PATTERN
Within a sweeping act of destruction, the text makes the boundary legible by naming what is spared and what is consumed.
And the blood will be a mark for you upon the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will leap over you, and the blow will not be upon you to ruin you when I strike down the land of Egypt.And they burned the city with fire, and all that was within it. Only the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of copper and iron, they placed into the storehouse of the house of the LORD.And now I urge you to take heart, for not one living soul among you will be thrown away, only the ship.THE THREAD
And they burned the city with fire, and all that was within it. Only the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of copper and iron, they placed into the storehouse of the house of the LORD.Both verses use שרף (ś-r-p, burn): fire is the dividing act. Here, Hazor alone is burned; in Joshua 6:24, the same root describes a city-wide burning while the valuables are kept from the fire.
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