What Does Joshua 22:13 Mean?
And the children of Israel sent to the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the half tribe of Manasseh, into the land of Gilead, Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest.
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 the children of Israel sent unto the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the half tribe of Manasseh, into the land of Gilead, Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest,THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “sent” also carries the sense of release: the community reaches across distance by letting a representative go.
THE MEANING
A community meets the people at the other end of a divide by sending someone toward them. Here, a named priest carries that first movement of contact across the distance between the tribes.
THE ROOT
וַיִּשְׁלְחוּ
vayyishleḥû
GROWS FROM
שלח
to send forth; to send away or release
The verb here comes from שלח, a root that joins sending forth with letting go. The envoy’s departure is therefore more than movement: the community releases someone from its own reach toward the people he is sent to meet.
ALSO GROWS
shillēaḥ: to send away, let go
שִׁלֵּחַ
This form makes the root’s sense of release explicit; sending Phinehas means letting him go toward another group.
shālûaḥ: sent, dispatched
שָׁלוּחַ
This form describes the person produced by the same sending action; Phinehas becomes the one who carries the community’s approach across the distance.
THE PATTERN
Sending carries a purpose across a divide through a person who goes in the sender’s place.
Now go, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.Then David said, I will do faithful love to Hanun the son of Nahash, as his father did faithful love to me. And David sent to comfort him by the hand of his servants for his father. And David's servants came into the land of the children of Ammon.Then Jesus said to them again, Wholeness be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.THE THREAD
Now go, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.The Hebrew verb וַיִּשְׁלְחוּ in Joshua and אֶשְׁלָחֲךָ in Exodus both grow from שלח, “send forth.” In each verse, a person is sent across a divide to carry a purpose into a place the sender does not enter directly.
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