What Does Joshua 19:3 Mean?
And Hazarshual, and Balah, and Azem,
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 Hazar-shual, and Balah, and Azem,THE KEY
One of the inherited towns is named for a fox’s settlement, so the land’s identity includes the wild life named within it.
THE MEANING
The verse makes inheritance concrete by naming its places. Hazar-shual means “village of the fox,” while Azem shares a root associated with bone and strength. Balah’s origin is uncertain, so the names do not form a secure hidden sentence.
THE ROOT
חֲצַר־שׁוּעָל
Ḥaṣar-Šūʿāl
GROWS FROM
ח־צ־ר
ḥ-ṣ-r
Enclose; the related noun refers to a courtyard or settled enclosure.
“Hazar-shual” in this verse is Ḥaṣar-Šūʿāl. The compound חֲצַר שׁוּעָל (ḥaṣar šūʿāl, “village of the fox”) joins a settlement with a wild animal. The name makes the fox part of the place’s identity, not incidental scenery.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāṣēr: Courtyard, village, or settlement.
חָצֵר
This word supplies the enclosed or settled sense within Hazar-shual.
ḥăṣērōt: Settlements or courtyards.
חֲצֵרוֹת
The plural preserves the same idea of distinct places gathered within an inhabited landscape.
עָצֶם
ʿĀṣem
GROWS FROM
ע־צ־ם
ʿ-ṣ-m
Be strong or numerous; the related noun means bone or substance.
Azem shares its consonants with עֶצֶם (ʿeṣem, “bone”) and עָצַם (ʿāṣam, “grow strong or numerous”). The name thus opens onto a root that joins structural substance with strength and increase.
ALSO GROWS
ʿeṣem: Bone; substance or self in some uses.
עֶצֶם
This is the same root found in Azem and gives the place-name an echo of the body’s structural frame.
ʿāṣam: To become strong, mighty, or numerous.
עָצַם
This verbal branch connects the root’s image of substance with strength and increase.
THE PATTERN
An inheritance becomes tangible through an apportioned place, bounded lines, or a named share.
Out of the portion of the children of Judah was the inheritance of the children of Simeon; for the part of the children of Judah was too much for them; therefore the children of Simeon had their inheritance within the inheritance of them.The cords fall to me in sweet places; indeed, my inheritance is beautiful.And now, brothers, I set you alongside God and the word of his favor, which is able to build you as a house, and to give you a portion among all who have been set apart.THE THREAD
And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for out of man she was taken.Azem shares the root ע־צ־ם (ʿ-ṣ-m) with “bone” in this verse and with the verb for growing strong or numerous. The place-name opens onto the same word-family that names the body’s structural substance.
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