What Does Joshua 11:8 Mean?
And the LORD gave them into the hand of Israel, who struck them and pursued them to great Zidon, and to Misrephoth-maim, and to the valley of Mizpeh eastward, and they struck them, until they left them no remnant.
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 them into the hand of Israel, who smote them, and chased them unto great Zidon, and unto Misrephoth-maim, and unto the valley of Mizpeh eastward; and they smote them, until they left them none remaining.THE KEY
“Delivered” comes from נתן (natan, give or place): the verse shows people transferred into another’s power, then names that power’s end as annihilation.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now with unsettling clarity: being placed in another’s hand means being subject to that hand’s power, and here that power ends with no survivors. It holds the LORD’s act of delivery and Israel’s violence in the same frame.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the assumption that divine deliverance means rescue for everyone caught up in it: here, one people’s delivery becomes another people’s lethal power over them.
THE ROOT
וַיִּתְּנֵם
wayyittenem
GROWS FROM
נתן
natan
To give, place, or set.
“gave” in this verse is wayyittenem. The verb translated “delivered” names the act of giving or placing them into another’s hand; the hand specifies the power they are placed under. The same root forms words for a gift, but here the outcome is stated plainly: the transfer ends in killing.
ALSO GROWS
mattan: Gift; something given.
מַתָּן
It shares the root of the act of giving, showing how the root names a transfer without determining whether its result is gentle.
mattanah: Present; gift.
מַתָּנָה
This branch also grows from נתן (natan, give or place), while the verse’s surrounding words make the violent result of this particular transfer explicit.
וַיִּרְדְּפֵם
wayyirdəfem
GROWS FROM
רדף
radaph
To pursue or follow after.
“pursued” in this verse is wayyirdəfem. The root holds the pursuit itself, while the object determines its direction: here people are hunted to their destruction. Elsewhere the same verb describes pursuing peace, revealing how one root can name pursuit toward radically different ends.
ALSO GROWS
rodef: A pursuer; one who follows after.
רֹדֵף
This participle names the one doing the pursuing, making visible the agent behind the chase in this verse.
verodfehu: “And pursue it,” in the phrase “seek peace, and pursue it” (Psalm 34:14 KJV).
וְרָדְפֵהוּ
The same pursuit root can be directed toward peace; here its object is a people who are struck until none remain.
THE PATTERN
Being placed in another’s hand transfers power, while the receiver’s use of that power determines what the transfer becomes.
And the fear of you and the shattering of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every bird of the sky, and upon all that creeps upon the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; into your hand they have been given.And this day you have declared how you have done good with me, for when the LORD gave me into your hand, you did not kill me.Jesus answered, You would have no authority at all against me, unless it had been given you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you has a greater shortcoming.THE THREAD
And this day you have declared how you have done good with me, for when the LORD gave me into your hand, you did not kill me.Here the same נתן (natan, give or place) root appears in “delivered me into thine hand.” Saul is within David’s power, but David does not kill him; the shared root makes the transfer itself the hinge, while the receiver’s action changes what follows.
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