What Does Joshua 6:27 Mean?
So the LORD was with Joshua, and his name was heard through all the land.
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
So the LORD was with Joshua; and his fame was noised throughout all the country.THE KEY
In Hebrew, Joshua’s “fame” is his report, what is heard of him, so the verse joins the LORD’s presence to a story traveling through the land.
THE MEANING
This verse meets you in the pairing of presence and reach: the LORD is with Joshua, and what is heard of him fills the land. Joshua’s name carries the nature “YHWH delivers,” so the report’s reach echoes the deliverance held in his name. Here being known is described as what people hear, not simply an image attached to a name.
THE ROOT
שָׁמְעוֹ
shamo
GROWS FROM
שמע
sh-m-ʿ
hear, listen
“heard” in this verse is shamo. The Hebrew word is “his report,” from the same root as the verb “to hear.” English separates reputation from sound; the root ties being known to what people hear and pass on.
ALSO GROWS
shamaʿ: hear, listen
שָׁמַע
The same root shows that Joshua’s fame is something heard, not merely a title he possesses.
shemuʿah: report, tidings
שְׁמוּעָה
This related noun makes the link explicit: what spreads as fame is also a report carried from person to person.
יְהוֹשֻׁעַ
Yehoshua
GROWS FROM
ישע
y-sh-ʿ
deliver, rescue; bring out of constriction
Yehoshua joins the name of the LORD with the root yasha, deliver. The verse places that deliverance-shaped name beside the report heard throughout the land, so Joshua’s name and the reach of his reputation meet in one line.
ALSO GROWS
yashaʿ: deliver, rescue
יָשַׁע
This is the deliverance-root carried in the name Yehoshua.
yeshuah: deliverance
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun from the same root names the nature compressed into Joshua’s name.
THE PATTERN
What is heard of God’s work travels beyond its first witness and draws others toward encounter.
And when the queen of Sheba heard the report of Solomon concerning the name of the LORD, she came to test him with riddles.And straightway his report went out through all the region around Galilee.But I say, Have they not heard? Yes, indeed, their sound went out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the inhabited earth.THE THREAD
For we have heard how the LORD dried up the waters of the Red Sea before your face, when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites, Sihon and Og, who were across the Jordan, whom you devoted to destruction.Joshua 6:27 uses שָׁמְעוֹ, “his report,” from the root שמע, hear. Joshua 2:10 uses that same root in “we have heard,” showing the report of the LORD’s deliverance and Joshua’s fame carried through the same act of hearing.
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