What Does Genesis 10:19 Mean in the King James?

And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest, unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha.

Genesis 10:19 · 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 boundary is traced with one repeated verb for coming, even where the KJV shifts from “comest” to “goest,” so the map is experienced as a route of arrival.

THE MEANING

You meet the edge of a place by moving through it: named places show where the territory reaches. The verse traces the Canaanite border from Sidon through Gerar and Gaza, then past the cities named toward Lasha. The same Hebrew word for coming marks both turns in that route.

THE ROOT

בֹּאֲכָה

boʾăḵā

GROWS FROM

בוא

b-w-ʾ

to come, enter, arrive

“comest / goest” in this verse is boʾăḵā. The Hebrew repeats ⁨בֹּאֲכָה⁩ (bo’akha, “as you come”) at both turns; the KJV renders the first “comest” and the second “goest,” hiding the repeated arrival verb. The border is narrated through coming toward named places, as a route encountered by entering the landscape.

ALSO GROWS

boʾ: to come, enter, arrive

בּוֹא

The root verb makes clear that both English directions in the verse share the same Hebrew action.

mavo: entrance, approach

מָבוֹא

An entrance is a place of coming in, reinforcing how the border is encountered by approach.

tevuʾah: produce, yield, income

תְּבוּאָה

This branch names what comes in from a field, extending the root’s sense of arrival into what a place yields.

THE PATTERN

A people’s territory becomes legible through named edges and appointed bounds.

Then your south quarter shall be from the wilderness of Zin along by the coast of Edom, and your south border shall be the outmost coast of the salt sea eastward:

Numbers 34:3 · KJVThe border is traced through named regions and physical landmarks, making the territory legible as a route.

This then was the lot of the tribe of the children of Judah by their families; even to the border of Edom the wilderness of Zin southward was the uttermost part of the south coast.

Joshua 15:1 · KJVThe land allotted to a people is marked by its edges and adjoining places.

And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;

Acts 17:26 · KJVThe bounds of where peoples dwell are presented as part of how their place on earth is determined.

THE THREAD

And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar.

Genesis 13:10 · KJV

The same Hebrew verb ⁨בוא⁩ (boʾ, “come, enter”) appears in “as thou comest unto Zoar.” Genesis 10 uses that arrival language to trace a border, while this verse uses it to locate the plain near Sodom and Gomorrah through the approach to Zoar.

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