What Does Judges 11:23 Mean?
So now the LORD God of Israel has driven out the Amorites from before his people Israel, and will you possess it?
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
So now the LORD God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and shouldest thou possess it?THE KEY
The same Hebrew root turns dispossession and possession into two sides of one transfer.
THE MEANING
This verse places a claim to possession beside the removal that came before it. One Hebrew root describes the Amorites being driven out and asks whether another party should possess what changed hands.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
What is in my possession can be considered apart from whose removal made it mine.
THE ROOT
הוֹרִישׁ
hôrîš
GROWS FROM
ירשׁ
To take possession or inherit; in the causative form, to dispossess or drive out.
“has driven out” in this verse is hôrîš. English gives the two actions opposite names, but the Hebrew repeats the root ירשׁ (yāraš) for both: God drives the Amorites out, then Jephthah asks whether the king will possess the land. The word holds both sides of the change in possession together.
ALSO GROWS
hôrîš: Dispossess, drive out; the causative form of ירשׁ (yāraš).
הוֹרִישׁ
This is the form translated “dispossessed,” describing the removal that precedes the question of possession.
yāraš: Possess, inherit; also dispossess depending on its grammatical form and context.
יָרַשׁ
The form behind “possess” in the question shares its root with “dispossessed,” joining receiving the land to the prior removal.
môrāšāh: Possession, inheritance.
מוֹרָשָׁה
This noun from the same root names what is received, keeping inheritance within the same family of words as dispossession.
THE PATTERN
In these verses, receiving possession is joined to the removal of those who held the land before.
And the LORD your God, he shall expel them from before you, and drive them from out of your sight; and you shall take hold of their land, as the LORD your God has spoken to you.Do not say in your heart, after the LORD your God has thrust them out before you, “Because of my alignment the LORD has brought me in to possess this land.” But because of the wickedness of these nations, the LORD drives them out before you.Which also our fathers, having brought it in, took hold of in turn with Jesus, into the holding of the nations, whom God thrust out before the face of our fathers, until the days of David.THE THREAD
Do not say in your heart, after the LORD your God has thrust them out before you, “Because of my alignment the LORD has brought me in to possess this land.” But because of the wickedness of these nations, the LORD drives them out before you.Deuteronomy uses ירשׁ (yāraš) for both dispossessing and possessing, then warns against treating possession as proof of personal righteousness. It opens Judges 11:23 further by keeping the transfer and the claim to the land in view together.
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