What Does Joshua 21:23 Mean?
And out of the tribe of Dan, Eltekeh with her pastures, Gibbethon with her pastures,
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 out of the tribe of Dan, Eltekeh with her suburbs, Gibbethon with her suburbs,THE KEY
The verse counts the open ground around a town as part of its inheritance: the dwelling extends beyond its built center.
THE MEANING
The verse names each town together with its surrounding open land, holding the center and its margin as one place. The land around a dwelling belongs to its shape, too.
THE ROOT
מִגְרָשֶׁיהָ
migrasheha
GROWS FROM
גרש
To drive out or expel; מִגְרָשׁ names the open ground around a town.
“suburbs” in this verse is migrasheha. The verse’s מִגְרָשֶׁיהָ (migrasheha, its open lands) belongs to the גרש family, whose verb means to drive out or expel. Here the noun names the open margin beyond the town’s built center, while counting that land as part of the town’s place.
ALSO GROWS
garash: To drive out, expel
גָּרַשׁ
This verb shares the root’s consonants and connects the open margin to the space outside the built center.
megorash: Driven out, expelled
מְגֹרָשׁ
This form shows the root’s action as a resulting state; מִגְרָשׁ names the open area around the settlement.
THE PATTERN
Dwelling takes shape through the space assigned around it.
Command the children of Israel to give the Levites cities to settle in from the inheritance of their holding, and you shall also give the Levites pasturelands for the cities round about them.Of this there shall be for the sanctuary five hundred in length, and five hundred in breadth, square all around. And fifty cubits all around for its pasturelands.And he made from one blood every nation of humankind to settle upon all the face of the earth, marking out their fitted seasons and setting the boundary stones of their dwelling.THE THREAD
Command the children of Israel to give the Levites cities to settle in from the inheritance of their holding, and you shall also give the Levites pasturelands for the cities round about them.The same Hebrew noun מִגְרָשׁ (migrash, open land around a town) appears in Numbers’ instruction for the Levites’ cities. That verse makes Joshua’s repeated phrase concrete: each town’s place includes its surrounding open margin.
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