What Does Joshua 11:21 Mean?
And at that time Joshua came, and cut off the Anakim from the mountains, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the mountains of Judah, and from all the mountains of Israel. Joshua devoted them utterly, with their cities.
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 at that time came Joshua, and cut off the Anakims from the mountains, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the mountains of Judah, and from all the mountains of Israel: Joshua destroyed them utterly with their cities.THE KEY
The verse’s sharpest tension is in Joshua’s name: “YHWH delivers” stands beside the destruction of the Anakim and their cities.
THE MEANING
This verse places before you a stark pairing: the name Yehoshua carries “YHWH delivers,” while his action is to cut the Anakim off from the highlands and destroy them with their cities. Its language leaves the violence visible and extends it from people to settlements.
THE ROOT
יְהוֹשֻׁעַ
Yehoshua
GROWS FROM
ישע
Deliver, bring out from constriction toward spaciousness.
“Joshua” in this verse is Yehoshua. Yehoshua’s name joins the divine name YHWH to ישע (yasha), “deliver, bring out”: “YHWH delivers.” The verse places that deliverance-bearing name beside the destruction of people and cities, leaving the tension fully visible.
ALSO GROWS
Yeshua: Deliverance; a shorter form of the name.
יֵשׁוּעַ
It preserves the same deliverance root carried in Yehoshua.
yeshuah: Deliverance.
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun makes explicit the deliverance carried in Joshua’s name.
וַיַּכְרֵת
wayyakhrēt from karat
GROWS FROM
כרת
Cut, sever.
English preserves the image in “cut off” here, but the same root is also used for cutting a covenant. One Hebrew verb names both severing and covenant-making; its force here remains violent.
ALSO GROWS
karat berit: Cut a covenant.
כָּרַת בְּרִית
The same verb that describes severing the Anakim is used for making a covenant.
nikhrat: Be cut off, be severed.
נִכְרַת
This form shows the root’s recurring sense of removal by cutting.
הֶחֱרִימָם
heḥerimam
GROWS FROM
חרם
Place under the ban, devote to destruction.
“devoted them utterly” in this verse is heḥerimam. “Destroyed utterly” translates a different verb from “cut off”: it places the people and their towns under the ban, subject to destruction. The verse extends the violence beyond the people to their cities.
ALSO GROWS
ḥerem: A ban, or something placed under the ban.
חֵרֶם
It names the status behind the destruction described in the verse.
ḥāram: Place under the ban; devote to destruction.
חָרַם
This verb is the root action expressed by “destroyed utterly.”
THE PATTERN
A threat described as impossible to face is ultimately met at the mountain it occupies.
And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, who come from the giants; and we were in our own eyes as grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes.A people great and tall, the children of the Anakim, whom you have known, and of whom you have heard it said, “Who can stand before the children of Anak?”Now therefore give me this mountain, of which the LORD spoke in that day; for you heard in that day how the Anakim were there, and that the cities were great and walled. If so be the LORD will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the LORD said.THE THREAD
On that day the LORD cut a covenant with Abram, saying, To your seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.Joshua’s “cut off” uses כרת (karat); Genesis uses the same verb where the KJV says “made a covenant.” In Hebrew, severing and covenant-cutting share one root, bringing a striking link between Joshua’s violence and the language of binding promise.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us