What Does Joshua 13:2 Mean?
This is the land that yet remains. All the borders of the Philistines, and all Geshuri.
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
This is the land that yet remaineth: all the borders of the Philistines, and all Geshuri,THE KEY
The Hebrew names the remainder as land itself: what remains is concrete, bounded, and still present.
THE MEANING
What remains is not an abstract void: the verse names territory, borders, and peoples. The land is still present, and its limits can be stated. The Philistines and Geshurites remain visible in the description of that territory.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that what remains must be shapeless or undefined. Here, the remainder has named borders and peoples.
THE ROOT
הַנִּשְׁאָרֶת
hanish'eret
GROWS FROM
שאר
sha'ar
To remain; to be left over.
“remaineth” in this verse is hanish'eret. The Hebrew describes the land itself as what remains, keeping the remainder concrete and present. The same root also names a remnant: what remains is a portion that persists, not a blank.
ALSO GROWS
she'ar: Remnant, remainder.
שְׁאָר
This noun makes the idea of remaining a portion still present, like the land named here.
she'erit: Remnant, surviving portion.
שְׁאֵרִית
This form carries the same root into the idea of a portion that persists, linking the remaining land to what remains of a people or whole.
THE PATTERN
What remains is still a definite portion of the story, and its form can be named.
Behold, I have let fall to you these nations that remain, as an inheritance to your tribes, from Jordan, with all the nations that I have cut off, even to the great sea toward where the sun comes in.And it will come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and the escape of the house of Jacob, will no longer keep leaning their full weight upon the one who struck them, but they will lean their full weight upon the LORD, the Set-Apart One of Israel, in truth.Therefore a Sabbath settling remains for the people of God.THE THREAD
And it will come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and the escape of the house of Jacob, will no longer keep leaning their full weight upon the one who struck them, but they will lean their full weight upon the LORD, the Set-Apart One of Israel, in truth.Isaiah’s “remnant” is שְׁאָר (she’ar, remnant), from שאר (sha’ar, remain or be left over), the same root behind “remaineth” here. English places the word on land in Joshua and on people in Isaiah, while Hebrew carries the shared idea of what is left.
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