What Does Deuteronomy 3:4 Mean in the King James?

And we took all his cities at that time, there was not a city which we took not from them, threescore cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.

Deuteronomy 3:4 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The word translated “region” is ⁨חֶבֶל⁩ (ḥevel, cord or district), so the claim of capture reaches the whole bounded tract, not merely the listed cities.

THE MEANING

This verse lays before you a conquest measured in sixty cities, with no city outside the claim and the entire region of Argob named. Its language does not soften what happens: these cities are captured and taken from their ruler.

THE ROOT

וַנִּלְכֹּד

vannilkod

GROWS FROM

לכד

l-k-d

To catch, seize, or capture.

The first “took” is a concrete verb of capture, not merely a general word for gaining territory. The verse then repeats the claim by saying no city was left untaken, closing off any exception.

ALSO GROWS

lakad: To capture or seize.

לָכַד

Joshua 10:1 uses this form for Joshua’s taking of Ai, showing the same root naming a city’s capture.

nilkad: To be captured or caught.

נִלְכַּד

This passive form, used of Babylon in Jeremiah 50:24, shows the same root can name those caught as well as those doing the capturing.

חֶבֶל

ḥevel

GROWS FROM

חבל

ḥ-b-l

Cord or rope; also a district or tract.

The same word can name a cord and a district, giving “region” a more bounded, tangible edge than the English map term carries. Here, “all the region” extends the claim across the whole tract, not just its named city walls.

ALSO GROWS

ḥevel: Cord or rope.

חֶבֶל

This concrete sense sits inside the word translated “region,” linking the territory to the idea of a bounded tract.

ḥavalim: Lines or cords (Psalm 16:6).

חֲבָלִים

This plural form makes the cord sense visible and echoes the marked-out boundaries implied by a district.

THE PATTERN

The text closes a claim’s perimeter by naming its full scope and stating what remains outside, or that nothing does.

So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the LORD God of Israel commanded.

Joshua 10:40 · KJV“All” and “none remaining” make the extent of the violence explicit, just as Deuteronomy leaves no city outside its claim.

And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

Luke 19:44 · KJVThe phrase “not one stone upon another” closes every exception in its description of destruction.

Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:39 · KJVThe repeated negatives leave no category of creature outside the claim that separation cannot occur.

THE THREAD

Now it came to pass, when Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem had heard how Joshua had taken Ai, and had utterly destroyed it; as he had done to Jericho and her king, so he had done to Ai and her king; and how the inhabitants of Gibeon had made peace with Israel, and were among them;

Joshua 10:1 · KJV

The verb for “had taken” is ⁨לָכַד⁩ (lakad, capture), the same root as the first “took” in Deuteronomy 3:4. The repeated root connects the passages through the specific act of capture.

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