What Does Joshua 13:16 Mean?
And their border was from Aroer, which is upon the lip of the streambed Arnon, and the city that is in the midst of the streambed, and all the level ground by Medeba.
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 their coast was from Aroer, that is on the bank of the river Arnon, and the city that is in the midst of the river, and all the plain by Medeba;THE KEY
The verse makes the territory visible by naming its edges: the Hebrew word for “coast” can mean both the boundary and the land it encloses.
THE MEANING
This passage gives the territory a shape: its edge runs from Aroer along the Arnon, includes the city in the river, and reaches the plain by Medeba. The allotment becomes concrete through its named limits; the boundary and the land it holds belong to the same description.
THE ROOT
גְּבוּלָם
gebulam
GROWS FROM
גב״ל
g-b-l
To mark off or set a boundary.
גְּבוּל (gebul) can name both a boundary and the territory it defines. So “coast” carries the edge and the land together: the allotment takes shape through the limits that hold it.
ALSO GROWS
gebul: Boundary, border, or territory.
גְּבוּל
The verse uses this word for the defined extent of the land.
higbalta: You shall set bounds (Exodus 19:12).
הִגְבַּלְתָּ
This verb from the same root makes the act of marking a limit explicit, echoing the verse’s named edges.
THE PATTERN
A portion becomes concrete when its boundaries are named.
Command the children of Israel, and say to them, When you come into the land of Canaan, this is the land that shall fall to you for a holding, even the land of Canaan with its borders.The cords fall to me in sweet places; indeed, my inheritance is beautiful.And he made from one blood every nation of humankind to settle upon all the face of the earth, marking out their fitted seasons and setting the boundary stones of their dwelling.THE THREAD
And the Jordan was its border on the sunrise side. This was the inheritance of the children of Benjamin, by its borders all around, according to their families.The word translated “coast” here and “border” there is גְּבוּל (gebul), meaning boundary or territory. In both verses, the same root makes the inheritance legible through its edges.
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