What Does Joshua 15:39 Mean?
Lachish, and Bozkath, and Eglon,
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
Lachish, and Bozkath, and Eglon,THE KEY
Eglon may preserve the Hebrew calf-word עגל inside a place name, letting a living image remain beneath the map-label.
THE MEANING
The verse sets Lachish, Bozkath, and Eglon before you as distinct, named places. Its attention rests on the particular: a place is not an abstraction, and its name may carry an older image within it.
THE ROOT
עֶגְלוֹן
ʿEglōn
GROWS FROM
ע־ג־ל
ʿ-g-l
This consonantal base is associated with calf and heifer terms; the place-name’s derivation is uncertain.
Eglon is commonly connected with עגל, the Hebrew calf-word. If that connection holds, the name preserves an image that disappears when it is heard only as a place label; the verse itself does not explain the town’s naming.
ALSO GROWS
ʿēgel: Calf
עֵגֶל
This is the closest lexical echo of Eglon and gives the name a possible living image beneath its place-name form.
ʿeglâ: Heifer, a young female bovine
עֶגְלָה
This related form shows the same consonantal base in another word for a young bovine.
THE PATTERN
Scriptural names can carry a nature or vocation that the surrounding words disclose.
No longer shall your name be called Abram, but Abraham, father of multitudes, for I have set you as a father of many nations.And God said to Moses, I AM WHO I AM. And he said, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.And she will bring forth a son, and you will call his name Jesus, the LORD's deliverance, for he will deliver his people from their missing.THE THREAD
They made a calf in Horeb, and bowed down to the molten image.The calf here is עֵגֶל (ʿēgel), sharing the consonants ע־ג־ל commonly linked to Eglon. That echo lets the place name retain a possible image beneath its English form, though this verse does not establish the town’s etymology.
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