What Does Joshua 13:6 Mean?

All who settle the mountain country from Lebanon to Misrephothmaim, and all the Sidonians, them I will drive out from before the children of Israel. Only divide it by the cast stones to the Israelites for an inheritance, as I have commanded you.

Joshua 13:6 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

All the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon unto Misrephoth-maim, and all the Sidonians, them will I drive out from before the children of Israel: only divide thou it by lot unto the Israelites for an inheritance, as I have commanded thee.

THE KEY

The Hebrew root behind “drive out” also means to possess or inherit, placing expulsion inside the language of possession.

THE MEANING

This verse holds possession and expulsion together: the inhabitants are driven out, and the land is allotted to Israel. It names the people being removed and the lot by which the land becomes an inheritance. The transfer is concrete, and its human cost remains visible in the wording.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The belief that an inheritance is automatically harmless to others cannot stand here: the verse names people being driven out alongside land being allotted.

THE ROOT

אוֹרִישֵׁם

ʾôrîšēm

GROWS FROM

ירשׁ

y-r-sh

Take possession or inherit; in the causative form, dispossess or drive out.

“drive out” in this verse is ʾôrîšēm. The simple form of this root can mean to possess or inherit, while its causative form means to dispossess. English gives these different actions different words, but Hebrew grows both from the same root: gaining possession and removing those who possess it are bound together in the language.

ALSO GROWS

yārash: Take possession; inherit.

יָרַשׁ

This form names the incoming possession, showing that inheritance and the verse’s expulsion verb share one root.

hôrîš: Dispossess; drive out.

הוֹרִישׁ

This causative form expresses making another’s possession possible by removing the current inhabitants.

THE PATTERN

Scripture treats inheritance as a concrete transfer of possession, sometimes naming expulsion beside the promise and sometimes naming those who receive the earth.

And the LORD your God, he shall expel them from before you, and drive them from out of your sight; and you shall take hold of their land, as the LORD your God has spoken to you.

Joshua 23:5 · SDVThe verse states both sides of the transfer: the inhabitants are expelled, and Israel possesses their land.

But the bowed ones will inherit the land, and they will soften themselves in the abundance of wholeness.

Psalm 37:11 · SDVThe same Hebrew root appears in “inherit,” naming possession while identifying the meek as its recipients.

Flourishing are the bowed, for they inherit the earth.

Matthew 5:5 · SDVThe promise names the meek as inheritors of the earth in the New Testament as well.

THE THREAD

Do not say in your heart, after the LORD your God has thrust them out before you, “Because of my alignment the LORD has brought me in to possess this land.” But because of the wickedness of these nations, the LORD drives them out before you.

Deuteronomy 9:4 · SDV

The same Hebrew root names both possessing the land and driving its inhabitants out. This verse also denies that possession proves Israel’s righteousness, exposing the moral weight the word “inheritance” can carry.

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