What Does Joshua 18:22 Mean?
And Betharabah, and Zemaraim, and Bethel,
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 Beth-arabah, and Zemaraim, and Beth-el,THE KEY
Beth-el means “house of God,” so this boundary list locates a town whose name already carries a dwelling joined to the divine.
THE MEANING
Inheritance takes shape here through named places held within a defined boundary. Beth-arabah, Zemaraim, and Beth-el stand as distinct points in that geography, and Beth-el carries “house of God” in its name. The verse gives belonging both a location and a name.
THE ROOT
בֵּית־אֵל
Bethel
GROWS FROM
בית
bayit
House, dwelling, household.
In Beth-el, בֵּית (bet, “house of”) is the construct form of בַּיִת (bayit, “house”), joined to אֵל (El, “God”). The place-name makes dwelling part of the boundary itself: the land is described through places whose names carry meaning.
ALSO GROWS
batim: Houses; the plural of bayit.
בָּתִּים
The plural keeps the root’s concrete sense of dwellings visible within the word family.
Beth-lehem: House of bread.
בֵּית לֶחֶם
Like Beth-el, this place-name joins בית (bayit, “house”) to another word, showing how the shared root gives a place its first image.
THE PATTERN
Scripture makes place tangible by joining names to the boundaries that locate them.
And he called the name of that place Bethel, house of God; but the name of that city was called Luz at the first.Then your south corner shall be from the wilderness of Zin, beside the hand of Edom, and your south border shall be the outermost edge of the salt sea eastward.And he made from one blood every nation of humankind to settle upon all the face of the earth, marking out their fitted seasons and setting the boundary stones of their dwelling.THE THREAD
And he called the name of that place Bethel, house of God; but the name of that city was called Luz at the first.Genesis 28:19 sets Bethel beside the place’s earlier name, Luz, making the name itself part of how the place is read. Here, the boundary list names that same “house of God” within its geography.
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