What Does Joshua 13:13 Mean?
Nevertheless the children of Israel did not drive out the Geshurites, nor the Maachathites. But the Geshurites and the Maachathites have settled among the Israelites until this day.
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
Nevertheless the children of Israel expelled not the Geshurites, nor the Maachathites: but the Geshurites and the Maachathites dwell among the Israelites until this day.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for dispossessing belongs to the same root family as inheriting, so the verse shows possession and removal as one unfinished transfer.
THE MEANING
The verse holds possession and incompletion in the same frame: a place can be claimed while another presence remains settled within it. What remains is not made absent by the larger claim; it continues to have a place in the present. “Until this day” gives that continuation its sharpest edge.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that claiming a place means nothing else remains within it.
THE ROOT
הוֹרִישׁוּ
horishu
GROWS FROM
ירש
y-r-sh
To possess or inherit; in the causative stem, to cause another to lose possession, to dispossess.
“did not drive out” in this verse is horishu. The verb translated “expelled” belongs to the same root family that can describe inheriting or possessing. The removal of one people and the taking of a place are two sides of a transfer, and here that transfer remains unfinished.
ALSO GROWS
yarash: To inherit, possess, or dispossess
יָרַשׁ
The range of the verb holds both sides of the verse’s unfinished transfer.
yerushah: Inheritance, possession
יְרֻשָּׁה
This noun makes visible the inheritance side of the same root family.
morashah: Inheritance, heritage, possession
מוֹרָשָׁה
It echoes the verse’s question of who occupies and possesses the land.
בְּקֶרֶב
beqerev
GROWS FROM
קרב
q-r-b
To draw near or be near; קֶרֶב (qerev) names the midst or inner part.
The word for “among” is literally “in the midst,” from the consonant family associated with nearness and drawing near. It places the remaining peoples inside Israel’s space, not merely at its edge.
ALSO GROWS
qarav: To draw near, approach
קָרַב
The shared consonants link being in the midst with nearness.
qorban: A drawing-near; an offering
קָרְבָּן
This familiar branch carries the same idea of approach, deepening the sense of presence within.
וַיֵּשֶׁב
vayeshev
GROWS FROM
ישב
y-sh-b
To sit, settle, or dwell.
“have settled” in this verse is vayeshev. The verb’s root reaches from sitting to settled dwelling. The peoples remaining among Israel are pictured as established there, not simply passing through.
ALSO GROWS
yashav: To sit, dwell, settle
יָשַׁב
This verb form shows the root’s range from sitting to inhabiting.
moshav: Dwelling, settlement, seat
מוֹשָׁב
The related noun gives a place or state of settled presence.
THE PATTERN
A presence left within a larger whole remains part of its actual condition.
But if you will not drive out the settlers of the land from your face, then those you let remain of them shall be thorns in your eyes and goads in your sides, and they shall press you in the land where you settle.Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?By small measures I will drive them out from before you, until you are fruitful and take hold of the land.THE THREAD
Manasseh did not drive out the settlers of Bethshean and its towns, nor of Taanach and its towns, nor of Dor and its towns, nor of Ibleam and its towns, nor of Megiddo and its towns, but the Canaanites were willing to settle in that land.Joshua’s “expelled” and Judges’ “drive out” use forms of the same Hebrew root, ירש (y-r-sh), which also carries the sense of inheriting or possessing. Judges then names the same consequence: those not driven out continue to dwell in the land.
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