What Does Joshua 2:23 Mean?
So the two men turned back, and came down from the mountain, and crossed over, and came to Joshua the son of Nun, and recounted to him all the things that found them.
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
So the two men returned, and descended from the mountain, and passed over, and came to Joshua the son of Nun, and told him all things that befell them:THE KEY
The “things that befell them” are literally the things that found them, so the report gathers what the crossing brought to meet them.
THE MEANING
What meets you on a hard crossing remains tellable when you return; the return gathers those encounters into a full account. That account arrives before Joshua, a name carrying the nature of the LORD’s deliverance, so encounter and deliverance stand together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that what happens during survival must be left behind dissolves here: the men return with all that met them still present in their account.
THE ROOT
הַמֹּצְאוֹת
hamotze'ot
GROWS FROM
מצא
To find, meet, or encounter; here, “the things that found them.”
“found them” in this verse is hamotze'ot. The Hebrew pictures events as things that meet the men along the way. Their report gathers those encounters whole instead of leaving them behind in the crossing.
ALSO GROWS
matsa: Find, meet, encounter.
מָצָא
The root verb makes the verse’s image concrete: what befell the men is what came to meet them.
nimtsa: Be found, be present.
נִמְצָא
What found them remains present in the account they bring back.
וַיְסַפְּרוּ
vayesapperu
GROWS FROM
ספר
To count, recount, or relate.
“recounted to him” in this verse is vayesapperu. The verb for telling also carries the sense of counting: the men give a full accounting of what they encountered. English “told” can hide that sense of gathering each part into the report.
ALSO GROWS
safar: Count, number, recount.
סָפַר
The counting sense illuminates the verse’s “all things”: their telling takes in the whole experience.
sefer: Book, scroll, written account.
סֵפֶר
The same root connects recounting with an account that can be held and remembered.
יְהוֹשֻׁעַ
Yehoshua
GROWS FROM
ישע
Deliver, bring out from constriction into spaciousness; the name Yehoshua carries “the LORD delivers.”
The men bring their full report to Joshua, whose name carries the nature of deliverance. The destination of the account is itself named for being brought out.
ALSO GROWS
yasha: Deliver, bring out.
יָשַׁע
This verbal form names the deliverance carried in Joshua’s name.
yeshuah: Deliverance.
יְשׁוּעָה
The related noun makes the name’s connection to deliverance explicit.
THE PATTERN
A crossing becomes shared knowledge when its travelers return and recount what met them.
And they came to Jacob their father, to the land of Canaan, and told him all that met them, saying,And Moses told his father-in-law all that the LORD had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel's sake, and all the hardship that had found them on the way, and how the LORD snatched them free.And when they had arrived and gathered the assembly together, they reported all that God had done with them, and that he had opened a door of trust to the nations.THE THREAD
And Moses told his father-in-law all that the LORD had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel's sake, and all the hardship that had found them on the way, and how the LORD snatched them free.Moses uses the same ספר (safar), “recount”, root when he tells Jethro what happened along the way. Both verses show the journey becoming a complete account, with its trouble and deliverance brought into the open.
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