What Does Joshua 14:2 Mean?
Their inheritance was by the casting of the stones, as the LORD commanded by the hand of Moses, for the nine tribes and for the half tribe.
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
By lot was their inheritance, as the LORD commanded by the hand of Moses, for the nine tribes, and for the half tribe.THE KEY
The lot is the visible procedure; the Hebrew places the allotment at the LORD’s mouth and carries it into action by Moses’ hand.
THE MEANING
A portion you receive can be ordered by something beyond the visible means of its distribution. The verse calls that means a lot and locates its ordering in the LORD’s word, carried into action through a human hand.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what appears to be chance is therefore outside the LORD’s ordering.
THE ROOT
עַל־פִּי יְהוָה
ʿal-pi YHWH
GROWS FROM
פֶּה
Mouth; in this phrase, according to the mouth, word, or decision of.
The KJV names the visible procedure as “by lot”; the Hebrew phrase עַל־פִּי יְהוָה (ʿal-pi YHWH) means “at” or “according to the mouth of the LORD.” The allotment is presented beneath a spoken order.
ALSO GROWS
pi: Mouth of; the construct form of “mouth.”
פִּי
This form appears in the verse’s phrase and keeps the image of an utterance beneath the allotment.
lefi: According to; in line with.
לְפִי
This related mouth-based phrase shows how “mouth” extends to what is spoken or set as a measure.
הַמַּטּוֹת
ha-mattot
GROWS FROM
נטה
n-ṭ-h
To stretch out, extend, or incline.
The word for “tribes,” mattot, is the plural of matteh, which also means “staff” or “rod.” The image of a line extending from a source gives the tribal allotment the shape of branches belonging to a larger family line.
ALSO GROWS
matteh: Staff or rod.
מַטֶּה
The staff sense makes the root’s image of extension tangible.
matteh: Tribe or tribal division.
מַטֶּה
The same word names the family line that receives its allotted portion.
צִוָּה
tsivvah
GROWS FROM
צוה
ṣ-w-h
To command, direct, or appoint.
“commanded” in this verse is tsivvah. The command is not separate from the allotment: it gives the distribution its governing order. The phrase “by the hand of Moses” shows that the spoken direction takes form through a human agent.
ALSO GROWS
mitzvah: Commandment or instruction.
מִצְוָה
This noun shares the command root and shows its use for an instruction that directs action.
tsav: Command or directive.
צַו
This shorter form keeps the sense of an uttered order that guides what follows.
THE PATTERN
A visible lot or portion is held within an ordering that belongs to the LORD.
The lot is thrown into the lap, but all its judgment is from the LORD.The LORD is the portion of my share and of my cup; you hold fast my lot.And they cast their lots, and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was counted with the eleven sent ones.THE THREAD
Speak to the children of Israel, and take from them a staff for each house of their fathers, from all their princes according to the house of their fathers, twelve staffs. Write every man's name upon his staff.The Hebrew word rendered “tribes” in Joshua is mattot, plural of matteh, the same word rendered “rod” here. The shared word links each tribe to a line extending from a father’s house, the line along which the inheritance is apportioned.
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