What Does Joshua 4:19 Mean?
And the people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and camped in Gilgal, on the eastern edge of Jericho.
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 people came up out of Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and encamped in Gilgal, in the east border of Jericho.THE KEY
The people rise from the Jordan, “the descender,” and camp at Gilgal, whose name carries the motion of rolling away.
THE MEANING
You come up from what has carried you downward, and the crossing ends in a place where you camp rather than rush on. Gilgal shares its root with the verb “roll away”; in the next verse, the reproach of Egypt is rolled away there. The place of arrival holds both pause and release.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The low place you have passed through is not proof that you remain there.
THE ROOT
גִּלְגָּל
Gilgal
GROWS FROM
גלל
galal
To roll, roll away.
Gilgal carries the sound and sense of rolling. The next verse uses this same root when it says the reproach of Egypt is rolled away, so the camp’s name holds the release that takes place there.
ALSO GROWS
galal: To roll or roll away.
גָּלַל
This is the verb behind Gilgal and the action named in the next verse.
megillah: Scroll, a rolled document.
מְגִלָּה
A scroll is shaped by the same motion of rolling, letting the place-name carry an action as well as a location.
יַרְדֵּן
Yarden
GROWS FROM
ירד
yarad
To go down, descend.
“Jordan” in this verse is Yarden. The river’s Hebrew name is commonly connected to yarad, “to descend.” The people “come up” from this descending river, so the verse’s movement is embedded in the names as well as the action.
ALSO GROWS
yarad: To go down or descend.
יָרַד
This is the root associated with the Jordan’s name and gives the river its descending sense.
yeridah: Descent, a going down.
יְרִידָה
This related noun makes the downward movement in the river’s name audible beside the people’s emergence.
וַיַּעֲלוּ
vayya'alu
GROWS FROM
עלה
alah
To go up, ascend.
“came up” in this verse is vayya'alu. The people do not merely leave the river; the Hebrew says they ascend from it. Set beside Jordan’s descending name, the sentence moves from down to up before it arrives at Gilgal.
ALSO GROWS
alah: To go up or ascend.
עָלָה
This is the verb describing the people’s movement out of the Jordan.
aliyah: Ascent, going up.
עֲלִיָּה
The related noun keeps the passage’s upward motion visible beyond the English phrase “came up.”
THE PATTERN
A passage through engulfing waters can become a shared threshold where people arrive on new ground.
And the children of Israel walked on the dry ground in the midst of the sea, and the waters were a wall to them, on their right hand and on their left.He overturns the sea into dry land; they pass through the flood on foot; there we rejoice in him.Now, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all of them passed through the sea.THE THREAD
And the LORD said to Joshua, This day I have rolled away the taunt of Egypt from off you. Therefore the name of that place is called Gilgal to this day.Gilgal in this verse and “I have rolled away” in the next share the root גלל (galal, “to roll”). The place-name carries the action: the people’s arrival is where the old reproach is said to be removed.
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