What Does Joshua 7:11 Mean?
Israel has missed the mark, and has also crossed over my covenant which I commanded them. For they have also taken from the devoted thing, and also stolen, and also lied, and also set it among their own vessels.
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
Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them: for they have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen, and dissembled also, and they have put it even among their own stuff.THE KEY
What is hidden among ordinary possessions remains inside the covenant breach; concealment becomes part of the act.
THE MEANING
A breach takes shape as a sequence: missing, crossing the covenant, taking, stealing, deception, and hiding what was taken among ordinary possessions. The hidden thing remains part of the shared breach; folding it into someone’s belongings does not make the rupture disappear.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what is concealed becomes private or separate from the breach: the hidden thing remains part of it.
THE ROOT
חָטָא
ḥāṭāʾ
GROWS FROM
חטא
To miss or go wrong; hence, to incur guilt.
“has missed the mark” in this verse is ḥāṭāʾ. The word for sin opens onto missing, and the verse gathers the later acts, crossing, taking, stealing, deception, and hiding, into one breach. Its singular wording, “Israel hath sinned,” holds the whole sequence together as a shared failure.
ALSO GROWS
chet: A missing; an offense.
חֵטְא
This noun keeps the sense of missing inside the word translated as sin.
chatta’t: A missing or offense; in sacrificial use, an offering for the missing.
חַטָּאת
The same root links the naming of the breach with the language of an offering for what has gone wrong.
כִּחֲשׁוּ
kiḥăšû
GROWS FROM
כחש
To deny, lie, or deceive.
“lied” in this verse is kiḥăšû. “Dissembled” can sound like a private mask, while this Hebrew verb names denial and deception. The verse places that denial beside theft and the concealment of what was taken, joining the false account to the hidden possession.
ALSO GROWS
kakhash: Deceit or falsehood.
כַּחַשׁ
This noun makes explicit the falsehood carried by the verb in the verse.
mekhachesh: One who denies or deceives.
מְכַחֵשׁ
This form names the agent of denial, showing how the verb describes an enacted deception.
THE PATTERN
Concealment folded into ordinary life does not cancel a breach; it leaves what is hidden inside it.
Whoever covers his rebellions shall not prosper, but whoever speaks them into the open and lets them go shall be shown compassion.But Peter said, Ananias, why has the Adversary filled your heart to lie to the Set-Apart Breath, and to draw aside from the price of the ground?For there is nothing covered that will not be uncovered, and nothing hidden that will not be known.THE THREAD
And Achan answered Joshua, and said, Firmly I have missed the mark against the LORD God of Israel, and thus and thus I have done.The same Hebrew root, חטא (chata, to miss or incur guilt), moves from “Israel hath sinned” to “I have sinned.” The shared wording holds the collective breach and the individual admission together.
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