What Does Joshua 6:10 Mean?
And Joshua had commanded the people, saying, You shall not raise a shout, nor let your voice be heard, and no word shall go out from your mouth, until the day I say to you, Shout. Then you shall shout.
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 Joshua had commanded the people, saying, Ye shall not shout, nor make any noise with your voice, neither shall any word proceed out of your mouth, until the day I bid you shout; then shall ye shout.THE KEY
The cry is already held within the silence; the verse gives it a boundary, then a release.
THE MEANING
Your voice can be held without being lost. The silence contains the shout, and the moment for it to emerge is part of the command.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Silence means your voice is powerless; here, the voice is held until its appointed release.
THE ROOT
תָרִיעוּ
tari'u
GROWS FROM
רוע
r-w-ʿ
To raise a cry or shout aloud.
“you shall not raise a shout” in this verse is tari'u. The verse uses this same root for both the shout being withheld and the shout that will be released. English makes them sound like separate instructions; Hebrew makes the held cry and the coming cry one continuous act.
ALSO GROWS
teru'ah: A shout, alarm cry, or blast.
תְּרוּעָה
This noun names the sound held back here, then heard when the cry is released.
hari'u: Shout! a plural command from the same root.
הָרִיעוּ
The final command repeats the root of the forbidden shout: the sound is not erased, but reserved for its cue.
THE PATTERN
A voice can be held without being lost; its release belongs to a fitting moment.
A time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to hush, and a time to speak.In a multitude of words, rebellion does not stop; but he who holds back his lips is wise.Know this, my beloved brothers. Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to swell.THE THREAD
So the people shouted when the priests blew the trumpets, and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell beneath itself, so that the people climbed up into the city, every man straight ahead of his face, and they seized the city.The shout in both verses comes from the same Hebrew root, רוע (r-w-ʿ), meaning to raise a cry. Here it is held back; there it breaks out at the trumpet’s sound, and the wall falls.
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