What Does Joshua 11:14 Mean?
And the children of Israel took the plunder of these cities and the cattle for themselves. But every man they struck with the mouth of the sword until they had destroyed them, and they left no breath.
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 all the spoil of these cities, and the cattle, the children of Israel took for a prey unto themselves; but every man they smote with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed them, neither left they any to breathe.THE KEY
The Hebrew says no neshamah, no breath, the word that also names life’s breath, is left.
THE MEANING
This verse confronts you with a brutal division: the cattle and city goods become property, while every person is struck down. No human breath remains; possession and extermination stand side by side in the same sentence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that victory can be measured only by what is gained: the same verse that names the spoil says that no one is left alive.
THE ROOT
נְשָׁמָה
neshamah
GROWS FROM
נשם
n-sh-m
To breathe; breath as a sign of life.
“they left no breath” in this verse is neshamah. Neshamah means breath, so “no neshamah” makes total destruction the absence of breath itself. The same word appears in the “breath of life” given to the human in Genesis 2:7: here, the breath that marks life is entirely gone.
ALSO GROWS
nishmat chayyim: Breath of life
נִשְׁמַת חַיִּים
In Genesis 2:7 this phrase names the breath by which the human becomes a living soul; here, no breath remains.
kol neshamah: Every breath; all that breathes
כֹּל נְשָׁמָה
The phrase in this verse and Deuteronomy 20:16 makes the destruction exhaustive by naming every breath.
בָּזְזוּ
bazzu
GROWS FROM
בזז
b-z-z
To plunder; to seize as spoil.
“took for a prey” in this verse is bazzu. The verb bazzu means “they plundered,” and the verse says they did it “for themselves.” The root places the taking of goods beside the ending of human breath, making possession and killing part of the same sentence.
ALSO GROWS
baz: Booty; spoil
בַּז
This noun names what is taken in plunder, the same category of goods the verse says they keep.
bizzah: Spoil; plunder
בִּזָּה
This related noun makes the taking explicit: the city’s goods become plunder for the conquerors.
THE PATTERN
The language of total destruction makes completeness measurable by whether any living thing remains.
All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry ground, died.But from the cities of these peoples, which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall keep alive nothing with breath.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.Joshua 11:14 and Deuteronomy 20:16 use the same Hebrew word, neshamah, for breath. Deuteronomy’s “nothing that breatheth” opens up what “no breath” means here: the destruction leaves no living breath.
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