What Does Judges 1:29 Mean?
Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites who settled in Gezer, but the Canaanites settled in Gezer among them.
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
Neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer; but the Canaanites dwelt in Gezer among them.THE KEY
The Hebrew places failed dispossession beside settled dwelling: what Ephraim does not dispossess remains among them.
THE MEANING
You see the result now: the people not driven out remain in Gezer, dwelling among those who did not drive them out. The verse keeps the force of the act in view, driving people out, and makes the failure equally plain: the Canaanites continue to live there.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a failed expulsion leaves no continuing presence. The verse states the opposite: the people remain in the place, dwelling among those who did not drive them out.
THE ROOT
הוֹרִישׁ
hôrîsh
GROWS FROM
י־ר־שׁ
y-r-sh
To take possession or inherit; in this causative form, to dispossess.
“drive out” in this verse is hôrîsh. The same root holds both taking possession and dispossessing another, so the verse’s failed expulsion is also a failure to take possession. Ephraim’s name (אֶפְרַיִם, ʾEfrayim) is tied to fruitfulness through פָּרָה (pārāh, “to bear fruit”), adding a pointed resonance to the tribe’s failure to clear the inhabitants from its territory.
ALSO GROWS
yāraš: Possess, inherit.
יָרַשׁ
This is the root’s branch for taking and holding what becomes one’s possession.
môrāšāh: Possession, inheritance.
מוֹרָשָׁה
It shows the root extending from the act of possessing to what is held as an inheritance.
וַיֵּשֶׁב
vayyēshev
GROWS FROM
י־שׁ־ב
y-sh-v
To sit, settle, dwell.
The verse first identifies the Canaanites as those dwelling in Gezer, then says they dwelt there among Ephraim. The repeated root makes their continued presence concrete: they are settled in the place, not passing through it.
ALSO GROWS
yōshēv: One who sits or dwells.
יֹשֵׁב
This form describes the Canaanites as residents of Gezer.
môshāv: Dwelling, seat, place of habitation.
מוֹשָׁב
It carries the same root into the settled place where someone lives.
גֶּזֶר
Gezer
GROWS FROM
ג־ז־ר
g-z-r
To cut or divide; the place-name Gezer is traditionally associated with this root.
The name Gezer carries an echo of cutting or division, adding resonance to a verse about failed removal. Yet the sentence’s plain fact remains: the Canaanites are not driven out and continue dwelling among Ephraim.
ALSO GROWS
gāzar: Cut, divide, decree.
גָּזַר
Its sense of cutting or dividing echoes the separation the verse says does not occur.
gəzērāh: Decree, determined decision.
גְּזֵרָה
It carries the root into what is decided or delimited.
THE PATTERN
What a community leaves or takes into its midst can become an active part of its shared condition.
But if you will not drive out the settlers of the land from your face, then those you let remain of them shall be thorns in your eyes and goads in your sides, and they shall press you in the land where you settle.But they interwove among the nations, and trained in their works.Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?THE THREAD
But if you will not drive out the settlers of the land from your face, then those you let remain of them shall be thorns in your eyes and goads in your sides, and they shall press you in the land where you settle.The phrase “drive out” uses the same Hebrew root, י־ר־שׁ (y-r-sh), whose meanings include taking possession and dispossessing. Numbers names what remains when the expulsion is incomplete; Judges shows the Canaanites dwelling among Ephraim.
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