What Does Judges 1:28 Mean?
And it came to pass, when Israel grew strong, that they set the Canaanites to forced labor, and did not utterly drive them out.
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 it came to pass, when Israel was strong, that they put the Canaanites to tribute, and did not utterly drive them out.THE KEY
Strength can make what remains profitable without making it disappear.
THE MEANING
This verse exposes a pattern that is alive now: something can be held under control and made useful while still remaining in place. Power and resolution are not the same; a profitable arrangement can preserve the very presence that strength could have removed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that if something is under control and producing value, it has been resolved.
THE ROOT
הוֹרִישׁ
hôrîš
GROWS FROM
י־ר־שׁ
y-r-sh
Possess or inherit; in the causative form, dispossess.
“drive them out” in this verse is hôrîš. This verb comes from the same root as “inherit” and “possess”: to dispossess one people is to transfer possession to another. The verse describes tribute without completing that transfer, so the people remain in place even as Israel asserts control.
ALSO GROWS
yāraš: Possess or inherit.
יָרַשׁ
It shows the possession contained in the root behind “drive out.”
môrāšāh: Possession or inheritance.
מוֹרָשָׁה
It makes clear that the root concerns who holds what, not only who leaves.
hôrîš: Dispossess or drive out.
הוֹרִישׁ
This is the form used in the verse, naming a transfer of possession that remains incomplete.
חָזַק
ḥāzaq
GROWS FROM
ח־ז־ק
ḥ-z-q
Be strong, firm, or prevail.
“grew strong” in this verse is ḥāzaq. Israel’s strength is stated before the verse describes how it is used: to impose tribute while leaving the Canaanites in place. Related forms of this root can mean “strengthen” and “hold fast,” revealing strength as capacity to maintain control, not proof that the situation is resolved.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāzaq: Be strong or prevail.
חָזַק
This is the word describing Israel’s strength in the verse.
ḥizzēq: Strengthen or make firm.
חִזֵּק
It shows strength as something that can be applied or increased.
heḥĕzîq: Hold fast or seize.
הֶחֱזִיק
This related form gives the root a holding quality that fits the verse’s continuing arrangement of control.
THE PATTERN
What is retained under control remains active and continues to shape the whole.
And they did not drive out the Canaanites who settled in Gezer, but the Canaanites have settled among the Ephraimites to this day, and have served under forced labor.Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?THE THREAD
Yet it came to pass, when the children of Israel grew strong, that they set the Canaanites under the load, and did not utterly drive them out.“Waxen strong” uses חָזַק (ḥāzaq, be strong), and “drive them out” uses יָרַשׁ (yāraš, possess or dispossess), the same root pair as this verse. The repeated pairing makes the gap visible: strength and tribute can coexist with an incomplete transfer of possession.
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