What Does Joshua 6:21 Mean?
And they devoted to destruction all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and donkey, with the mouth of the sword.
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 they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.THE KEY
“Utterly destroyed” carries the sense of putting the whole city under a ban whose outcome the verse names with the sword.
THE MEANING
The verse confronts you with a total act of killing: women and men, young and old, ox, sheep, and ass are all included. The sentence keeps the violence concrete by naming each category of human and animal life and the sword that kills.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that the verse means only that a city was defeated is undone by its explicit list of people of every age and sex, along with the animals, and its mention of the sword.
THE ROOT
וַיַּחֲרִימוּ
wayyaḥărîmû
GROWS FROM
חרם
To place under the ban; to devote to destruction.
“devoted to destruction” in this verse is wayyaḥărîmû. Here the verb places the city’s contents under the ban, and the verse names the result: all are killed by the sword. The noun חֵרֶם uses the same root for a thing placed under the ban, joining the designation and the destructive act in one word-family.
ALSO GROWS
ḥērem: A ban; a thing placed under the ban or devoted.
חֵרֶם
This noun shows that חרם can name what is placed under the ban as well as the act; Joshua’s list makes the reach of that act concrete.
ḥāram: To ban or devote to destruction.
חָרַם
This verbal form shares all three consonants, חרם, and shows the word-family behind “utterly destroyed”; the verse gives that act its stated outcome in the sword.
THE PATTERN
A text makes the reach of violence visible by naming the people and kinds of life it touches.
Now go and strike Amalek, and devote all that they have to destruction, and do not spare them; but put to death man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.Then Herod, when he perceived that he had been mocked by the wise men, burned with rage, and sent forth and killed all the children who were in Bethlehem and in all its borders, from two years old and under, according to the time he had carefully learned from the wise men.THE THREAD
Now go and strike Amalek, and devote all that they have to destruction, and do not spare them; but put to death man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.The Hebrew uses the same root, חרם, for “utterly destroy.” Its list of infants, adults, and animals echoes Joshua’s and makes the shared language of total destruction visible.
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