What Does Judges 1:23 Mean?
And the house of Joseph scouted out Bethel. The city was once called Luz.
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 house of Joseph sent to descry Beth-el. (Now the name of the city before was Luz.)THE KEY
The search reaches a place held under two names: Bethel (בֵּית־אֵל, Bēt-ʾĒl, “house of God”) and its earlier name Luz (לוּז, Lūz, “almond tree”).
THE MEANING
You encounter a place through active searching, and the search reaches a name with another name beneath it. Bethel (בֵּית־אֵל, Bēt-ʾĒl, “house of God”) stands beside Luz (לוּז, Lūz, “almond tree”), its earlier name. The place is encountered through both its present name and the nature preserved in its former one.
THE ROOT
וַיָּתִירוּ
wayyātîrû
GROWS FROM
ת־ו־ר
to range through, explore, or search out
“scouted out” in this verse is wayyātîrû. The Hebrew verb describes deliberate exploration through a place, not simply seeing it from a distance. “Descry” can sound like a single glance, while the root holds a movement through the unknown.
ALSO GROWS
lātūr: to explore or search out
לָתוּר
The infinitive presents searching as an active ranging through what is not yet known.
veyāturū: that they may search out
וְיָתֻרוּ
The same root describes the scouts’ exploration of Canaan in Numbers 13:2.
בֵּית־אֵל
Bēt-ʾĒl
GROWS FROM
ב־י־ת
house, dwelling, or household
“Bethel” in this verse is Bēt-ʾĒl. The name describes a dwelling by what it is related to: God. Biblical place-names such as Bēt-Leḥem (“house of bread”) likewise carry a quality within the word “house.”
ALSO GROWS
bayit: house or dwelling
בַּיִת
This is the house-word carried inside Bethel’s name.
Bēt-Leḥem: house of bread
בֵּית־לֶחֶם
Like Bethel, this place-name identifies a dwelling through what it holds.
THE PATTERN
What lies ahead becomes knowable through deliberate seeking.
Send men, that they may scout out the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel. From every tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, each one a lifted one among them.The weight of God is to hide a matter; the weight of kings is to search out a matter.Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.THE THREAD
Send men, that they may scout out the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel. From every tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, each one a lifted one among them.Both verses use the root ת־ו־ר (t-w-r; tūr), meaning “to search out” or “explore.” Numbers makes the exploratory movement explicit: the land is ranged through before it is entered.
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