What Does Joshua 2:10 Mean?
For we have heard how the LORD dried up the waters of the Red Sea before your face, when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites, Sihon and Og, who were across the Jordan, whom you devoted to destruction.
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
For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that were on the other side Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed.THE KEY
Hearing is already a crossing: the report carries deliverance into the listener before the people arrive.
THE MEANING
The report reaches you before the people do: the LORD dries the sea into a route, and a people come out of Mitzrayim (מִצְרַיִם, Mitzrayim, the two narrows). The same account names two Amorite kings as utterly destroyed. Release and lethal force stand together here, so the verse does not hide the violence inside its account of deliverance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that only what you witness directly can move you is unsettled here: hearing the report already changes the listener before Israel arrives.
THE ROOT
שָׁמַעְנוּ
shama'nu
GROWS FROM
שמע
shama
hear, listen, heed or respond
The root שמע (shama, hear, listen, heed or respond) holds hearing that moves toward response, while English heard can sound passive. The following verse shows the report’s effect in the hearers’ melting hearts.
ALSO GROWS
shema: hear and respond
שְׁמַע
This branch shows that hearing can carry the beginning of a response, as it does in the report received here.
shemu'ah: report, news; something heard
שְׁמוּעָה
The report is itself what has been heard, carrying an event from one place into another listener’s world.
בְּצֵאתְכֶם
betsetkhem
GROWS FROM
יצא
yatsa
go out, emerge, depart
“came out” in this verse is betsetkhem. The root יצא (yatsa, go out or emerge) makes the Exodus a movement of emergence. Mitzrayim (מִצְרַיִם, Mitzrayim, the two narrows) names the constricted place being left, and the report carries that exit to listeners before the departing people arrive.
ALSO GROWS
yatsa: go out, emerge
יָצָא
This verb names the movement out of Egypt as a passage away from constriction.
motsa: outlet, departure, point of origin
מוֹצָא
This related form keeps the focus on the way out, making deliverance a departure as well as a destination.
הֶחֱרַמְתֶּם
haḥaramtem
GROWS FROM
חרם
charam
place under a ban; devote irrevocably, often to destruction
“devoted to destruction” in this verse is haḥaramtem. The English phrase states the outcome; חרם (charam, place under a ban or devote to destruction) also describes the total claim under which the kings are placed. Here that devotion is enacted through destruction, so the root sharpens the violence rather than softening it.
ALSO GROWS
ḥērem: a ban; something devoted under a ban, often for destruction
חֵרֶם
This noun names the status behind the kings’ total destruction, beyond a mere battlefield defeat.
heḥerim: put under the ban; devote to destruction
הֶחֱרִים
This verbal form expresses the act the verse attributes to Israel against the two kings.
THE PATTERN
A report of divine action reaches listeners before direct encounter, and the hearing itself begins a response.
The peoples shall hear and tremble; writhing shall grip the dwellers of Philistia.This day I begin to set your dread and your fear upon the face of the peoples under all the heavens, who will hear of you, and will tremble, and writhe because of you.So then trust comes out of hearing, and hearing comes through the word of God.THE THREAD
The peoples shall hear and tremble; writhing shall grip the dwellers of Philistia.Exodus uses the same root שמע (shama, hear, listen, heed or respond): the peoples hear, and fear follows. Joshua shows that pattern at close range, the report of deliverance has already crossed into the listener’s space before the people arrive.
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