What Does Joshua 2:20 Mean?
And if you speak this word of ours, then we will be clean of your oath, which you have made us swear.
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 if thou utter this our business, then we will be quit of thine oath which thou hast made us to swear.THE KEY
The oath’s protection has a boundary: “quit” means clear of liability once its secrecy condition is broken.
THE MEANING
A promise can bind fully while still having a stated condition: protection stands as long as the shared matter stays undisclosed. The words you bind yourself to do not float free of their terms; disclosure changes what remains owed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
An oath binds no matter what happens. This verse shows that its own terms can mark where its claim ends.
THE ROOT
נְקִיִּים
neqiyyim
GROWS FROM
נקה
n-q-h
Be clear, clean, or free of guilt and liability.
“clean” in this verse is neqiyyim. The word translated “quit” carries the sense of being clear of a claim, not simply escaping a consequence. The oath’s limit is expressed as a state of clearness: once its condition is broken, they are no longer liable under it.
ALSO GROWS
nāqî: Clean, innocent, or clear.
נָקִי
This same word describes someone free of guilt, showing how “quit” here means clear of an obligation.
yenaqqeh: He will clear or acquit.
יְנַקֶּה
In Exodus 34:7, the same root appears in “will by no means clear the guilty,” showing that the root can describe release from liability.
דְּבָרֵנוּ
devarenu
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
Speak; a spoken word, matter, or thing.
What the KJV calls “our business” is literally “our word” or “our matter.” The verse joins the thing shared between them to the act of making it known: their word remains protected only while it stays unspoken to others.
ALSO GROWS
dābār: Word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
This noun is the root of “our business,” holding speech and the matter being discussed together.
dibbēr: Spoke or uttered.
דִּבֵּר
This verb from the same root shows speech as the act that can expose the matter and end the oath’s protection.
שְׁבֻעָתֵךְ
shevu'atek
GROWS FROM
שבע
sh-b-ʿ
Swear or place someone under an oath.
The verse uses this root for both the oath itself and the act of making them swear it. The obligation and the act that imposes it are bound together in the wording, while the condition sets the boundary of that bond.
ALSO GROWS
shevu'ah: Oath.
שְׁבוּעָה
This noun names the bond that can be ended if the matter is disclosed.
hishbia: Made someone swear or put someone under oath.
הִשְׁבִּיעַ
This causative form echoes “which thou hast made us to swear,” linking the promise to the act that bound them.
THE PATTERN
An oath binds through its stated terms, and those terms define what must be kept.
If a man vows a vow to the LORD, or swears an oath to bind a binding upon his living soul, he does not pierce his word; he does according to all that goes out of his mouth.What has gone out of your lips you shall guard and do, even a willing offering, according as you have vowed to the LORD your God, which you have spoken with your mouth.But let your word be, Yes, yes; No, no. For whatever is more than these comes from evil.THE THREAD
And if the woman will not be willing to follow you, then you shall be clean of this my oath; only do not bring my son back there.Genesis 24:8 uses נָקִי (nāqî, clear or free of liability) for release from an oath when its stated condition fails. The shared root makes the structure visible: an oath can bind fully while its own terms mark the point where its claim ends.
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