What Does Judges 1:20 Mean?
And they gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses said, and he drove out from there the three sons of Anak.
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 gave Hebron unto Caleb, as Moses said: and he expelled thence the three sons of Anak.THE KEY
The Hebrew root behind “expelled” also means “inherit”: Caleb’s possession and the three sons’ dispossession belong to one movement.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to you in the full shape of a transfer: Hebron is given to Caleb, and the three sons of Anak are expelled. The grant and the violence occupy the same sentence; what becomes one person’s possession is taken from others.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that a granted inheritance is a clean gift untouched by loss: here Caleb’s grant is inseparable from the expulsion of those already in Hebron.
THE ROOT
וַיּוֹרֶשׁ
wayyōreš
GROWS FROM
ירש
To inherit or take possession; in a causative form, to dispossess or drive out.
“drove out from there” in this verse is wayyōreš. The verb rendered “expelled” belongs to the same root that describes inheriting and possessing. Hebrew holds Caleb’s acquisition and the sons’ removal together: the inheritance is seen from one side as possession, and from the other as dispossession.
ALSO GROWS
yāraš: To inherit, take possession, or dispossess, depending on the form.
יָרַשׁ
This root holds both sides of the transfer in Judges 1:20: Caleb receives the land as possession while its prior occupants are driven out.
yeruššāh: Inheritance or possession.
יְרֻשָּׁה
The noun makes explicit the receiving side of the same root whose verb here describes the expulsion.
חֶבְרוֹן
Ḥeḇrôn
GROWS FROM
חבר
To join, associate, or bind together.
Hebron’s name carries the sense of association, a root that also forms words for a companion and a company. That joining-name sits beside an expulsion: the verse’s place-name evokes connection while its action describes separation by force.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāḇēr: A companion or associate.
חָבֵר
The companion shares the root sense of joining that gives Hebron its name.
ḥeḇer: A company, association, or band.
חֶבֶר
This branch names a group joined together, adding the language of association to the place Caleb receives.
THE PATTERN
A transfer framed as inheritance can expose the removal or harm of those already in possession.
The Horim also settled in Seir in former days; but the children of Esau drove them out, and destroyed them from before them, and settled in their place; as Israel did to the land of his possession, which the LORD gave to them.But when those who work the soil saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and hold his inheritance.THE THREAD
The Horim also settled in Seir in former days; but the children of Esau drove them out, and destroyed them from before them, and settled in their place; as Israel did to the land of his possession, which the LORD gave to them.Deuteronomy uses the same ירש root for the children of Esau “succeeding” the Horites and for Israel’s “possession” of land the LORD gives. The shared root makes explicit what Judges 1:20 compresses: inheritance is named from the receiver’s side, while the same movement is dispossession for those already there.
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