What Does Joshua 15:55 Mean?
Maon, Carmel, and Ziph, and Juttah,
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
Maon, Carmel, and Ziph, and Juttah,THE KEY
Maon is not only a town name: it is the Hebrew word for a dwelling place.
THE MEANING
You encounter a place-name that still carries meaning: Maon is dwelling, habitation. The verse lets a place be more than a coordinate; the name holds the idea of home inside it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This loosens the assumption that a place-name is only a label: Maon is also the Hebrew word for dwelling.
THE ROOT
מָעוֹן
ma'on
GROWS FROM
עון
ʿ-w-n
To dwell or inhabit, inferred from the established sense of מָעוֹן as an abode.
Maon shares its Hebrew form with the common noun for a dwelling place. The name holds habitation inside the map, a connection made explicit when the same word names the LORD as a dwelling place in Psalm 90:1.
ALSO GROWS
ma'on: Dwelling place, habitation
מָעוֹן
This is both the town’s name and the common Hebrew word for an abode.
me'onah: Dwelling place, habitation
מְעוֹנָה
This related form carries the same sense of a place to dwell.
THE PATTERN
Scripture lets a place-name carry meaning, so a place can be read through what it is called as well as where it is.
And he called the name of that place Bethel, house of God; but the name of that city was called Luz at the first.You shall no more be called Left Behind, and your land shall no more be called Stunned; but you shall be called Hephzibah, my delight is in her, and your land Beulah, wedded; for the LORD delights in you, and your land shall be wed.And I, John, see the set-apart city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, made ready as a bride arranged for her husband.THE THREAD
A Prayer of Moses the man of God. Lord, you are our dwelling place in generation and generation.Psalm 90:1 uses the same Hebrew word, מָעוֹן (ma’on, dwelling place), that stands behind the name Maon. The town-name connection opens habitation beyond a location on the map: home is also a dwelling-place held across generations.
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