What Does Joshua 18:18 Mean?
And it crossed to the shoulder facing the Arabah northward, and went down into the Arabah.
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
And passed along toward the side over against Arabah northward, and went down unto Arabah:THE KEY
What looks like a fixed border is voiced through crossing and descent, locating the boundary in the land itself.
THE MEANING
This verse traces a boundary along the side facing Arabah, northward, then down into the Arabah. Direction and terrain make the place legible one movement at a time.
THE ROOT
וְעָבַר
veʿāvar
GROWS FROM
עבר
to cross over, pass through, or go beyond
“crossed” in this verse is veʿāvar. The verb’s seed is crossing or passing beyond, so the boundary is voiced as movement through the land rather than a static mark. Its word family joins the act of crossing with the far side reached by crossing.
ALSO GROWS
ʿēver: the other side; beyond
עֵבֶר
The same root that marks passage also names the far side, joining the route to the place it reaches.
maʿavār: a crossing; a passage
מַעֲבָר
This noun makes the crossing itself a place or way through, echoing how the boundary is traced as a route.
וְיָרַד
veyārad
GROWS FROM
ירד
to descend or go down
“went down into” in this verse is veyārad. The route is defined by a drop in elevation as well as by its direction. The same root can name descending or causing something to descend, so the land’s changing level is part of how this boundary is described.
ALSO GROWS
yeridah: a descent; going down
יְרִידָה
It names the downward movement embedded in the route.
horid: to bring down; lower
הוֹרִיד
This causative form shows the root extending from going down to lowering something, keeping the change in level at the center.
THE PATTERN
A route becomes legible through named places, direction, and movement across the terrain.
And the border circled from Baalah westward to mount Seir, and passed along to the shoulder of mount Jearim, which is Chesalon, on the north side, and went down to Bethshemesh, and passed along to Timnah.And your border shall turn about from the south to the ascent of Akrabbim, and cross over to Zin. And its goings out shall be from the south to Kadeshbarnea, and shall go out to Hazaraddar, and cross over to Azmon.Now when they had passed through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and had been hindered by the Set-Apart Breath from speaking the word in Asia,THE THREAD
And Abram crossed through the land to the place of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. The Canaanite was then in the land.“Passed through” uses the same Hebrew root, עבר, as “passed along” here. In both verses, crossing through named ground makes the route, and the land it traverses, visible.
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