What Does Joshua 6:2 Mean?
And the LORD said to Joshua, See, I have given into your hand Jericho, and its king, and the mighty men of strength.
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 LORD said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valour.THE KEY
Before Jericho falls, the verb already places the city, its king, and its fighters in Joshua’s hand.
THE MEANING
As you read, the declaration places what is not yet visible beside what is already given: Jericho, its king, and its fighting force all stand inside the sentence. The conquest remains concrete and forceful; the words do not turn the city’s capture into a metaphor. The outcome is named before it appears.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse overturns the assumption that an outcome can be spoken only after it becomes visible.
THE ROOT
נָתַתִּי
nātattî
GROWS FROM
נתן
give, set, place
“given into your hand” in this verse is nātattî. The verb-form נָתַתִּי (nātattî, “I have given”) presents the city as already transferred while the action still lies ahead. Since this root also carries the sense of setting or placing, the line pictures the conquest as a placement into Joshua’s hand before it becomes visible.
ALSO GROWS
mattānāh: gift, present
מַתָּנָה
This noun from the same root keeps the act of giving audible: what the verse calls given is framed as an act of giving, not a victory Joshua manufactures.
nātûn: given, placed, assigned
נָתוּן
This form makes the root’s sense of placement explicit, echoing the image of Jericho placed into Joshua’s hand.
THE PATTERN
A declaration names what is given before visible circumstances display it.
No longer shall your name be called Abram, but Abraham, father of multitudes, for I have set you as a father of many nations.Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient days the things not yet made, saying, My counsel will stand, and all that I delight in I will make.As it is written, I have set you as a father of many nations, before God, on whom he leaned his full weight, who makes the dead alive and calls the things that are not as though they were.THE THREAD
No longer shall your name be called Abram, but Abraham, father of multitudes, for I have set you as a father of many nations.The Hebrew behind “have I made thee” shares the root נתן (n-t-n; natan, “give, set, place”). Joshua hears the city already given into his hand; Abram is named as already placed into a future identity. The shared root reveals a declaration of placement before visible fulfillment.
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