What Does Joshua 19:17 Mean?
And the fourth lot came out to Issachar, for the children of Issachar according to their families.
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 the fourth lot came out to Issachar, for the children of Issachar according to their families.THE KEY
Issachar receives a lot, and its name already carries the language of wages and reward.
THE MEANING
This verse shows a portion named for a people and traced through their families. The name Issachar carries the language of wages or reward, placing that echo beside the tribe’s allotted share.
THE ROOT
יִשָּׂשכָר
Yissākār
GROWS FROM
שכר
Hire, wages, or reward.
Genesis 30:18 links Issachar’s name with שָׂכָר (sākār, hire or reward). Here the lot falls to a tribe whose name carries that reward-language, though the verse does not say the land is payment.
ALSO GROWS
sākār: Hire, wages, or reward.
שָׂכָר
This noun is the wordplay Genesis uses when Leah names Issachar, so it reveals the meaning carried by the tribe’s name.
sākhar: To hire or employ.
שָׂכַר
The verb shares the name’s root and connects Issachar’s name to the act of hiring that produces wages or reward.
THE PATTERN
A lot assigns a portion, while naming makes clear who receives it.
Only by the cast stones shall the land be divided. According to the names of the tribes of their fathers they shall inherit.The lot is thrown into the lap, but all its judgment is from the LORD.And they cast their lots, and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was counted with the eleven sent ones.THE THREAD
And Leah said, God has given me my wages, because I have given my maidservant to my husband. And she called his name Issachar, wages.Genesis links Issachar’s name with שָׂכָר (sākār, hire or reward). Joshua’s lot then falls to that name, bringing the root’s reward-language alongside the tribe’s allotted share.
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