What Does Joshua 23:15 Mean?
And it shall come to pass, that as all good words have come upon you, which the LORD your God has spoken to you, so the LORD shall bring upon you all evil words, until he has wiped you out from off this good land which the LORD your God has given you.
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
Therefore it shall come to pass, that as all good things are come upon you, which the LORD your God promised you; so shall the LORD bring upon you all evil things, until he have destroyed you from off this good land which the LORD your God hath given you.THE KEY
The gift and its loss stand under the same word: the LORD makes the warning as certain as the good.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks a severe symmetry: the good that reaches you and the calamity that drives you from the land are both named under the LORD’s word. It holds the gift and the possibility of its loss together, naming destruction and removal plainly.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that receiving a good gift guarantees you can never lose it.
THE ROOT
הַטּוֹבִים
haṭṭōvîm
GROWS FROM
ט־ו־ב
ṭ-w-b
Good, pleasant, beneficial.
“good words” in this verse is haṭṭōvîm. The verse’s “good things” carry more than a label of moral goodness: this root also describes what is beneficial and brings well-being. Its contrast with “evil things” makes the symmetry concrete, the same verse names what benefits you and what harms you.
ALSO GROWS
ṭov: Good, pleasant, beneficial.
טוֹב
This is the root word beneath the good things that come upon you.
hēṭîv: To do good, benefit, or deal well.
הֵיטִיב
This verb shows the root as an action: good is something done for you, not only an abstract quality.
ṭōvāh: Goodness or welfare.
טוֹבָה
This branch makes the promised good legible as well-being, sharpening what stands to be lost.
הָרָעִים
hā-rāʿîm
GROWS FROM
ר־ע־ע
r-ʿ-ʿ
To be bad or cause harm; badness, harm, calamity.
“evil words” in this verse is hā-rāʿîm. The root can name harm and calamity, so “evil things” here reaches beyond a moral category: the verse states that real destruction and expulsion follow. Paired with the root for good, it gives benefit and harm matching weight in the sentence.
ALSO GROWS
raʿ: Bad, evil, harmful.
רַע
This adjective names the bad things the verse says will come upon you.
rāʿāh: Evil, harm, or calamity.
רָעָה
This noun branch shows how the root can describe an affliction that happens to someone.
hērēaʿ: To do harm or act badly.
הֵרֵעַ
This verb makes the root active: the warning concerns harm brought upon you, not merely a bad quality.
נֹתֵן
nōtēn
GROWS FROM
נ־ת־ן
n-t-n
To give, set, or place.
The word for what the LORD has “given” carries the sense of giving, setting, and placing. The verse puts that gift beside the possibility of being removed from the land, holding placement and removal within one stark movement.
ALSO GROWS
nātan: To give, set, or place.
נָתַן
This is the root verb behind the land described as given to you.
mattānāh: A gift or present.
מַתָּנָה
This related noun makes the land’s status as a gift explicit.
nātûn: Given, set, or placed.
נָתוּן
This related form echoes the verse’s language of being placed in what is given.
THE PATTERN
The same divine word holds benefit and consequence together, giving the promise and the warning matching weight.
And it will be, as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good and to multiply you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to make you perish and to wipe you out. You will be uprooted from the ground you come in to possess.For thus says the LORD, As I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so I will bring upon them all the good that I have spoken concerning them.See, then, the kindness and the severing of God. Toward those who fell there is severing, but toward you there is kindness, if you stay in it. Otherwise you also will be cut out.THE THREAD
For thus says the LORD, As I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so I will bring upon them all the good that I have spoken concerning them.Jeremiah uses the same roots for calamity and good, but reverses their order: the LORD brings calamity, then promises to bring the good. That reversal makes the pairing vivid, the verse’s two outcomes stand under the same divine word.
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