What Does Joshua 1:14 Mean in the King James?
Your wives, your little ones, and your cattle, shall remain in the land which Moses gave you on this side Jordan; but ye shall pass before your brethren armed, all the mighty men of valour, and help them;
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Those who remain in the land and those who cross armed are joined in one act: making sure their brothers are helped.
THE MEANING
The verse holds home and danger together: families and cattle remain in their allotted land while the mighty men cross ahead to help their brothers. Staying and going both belong to the same shared undertaking. The word “help” makes the crossing an act of support for others.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that security and solidarity compete: here, those who remain and those who go are part of one undertaking.
THE ROOT
וַעֲזַרְתֶּם
vaʿazartem
GROWS FROM
עזר
to help, aid, or support
The Hebrew verb for “help” shares its root with עֵזֶר (ʿēzer), the word for help or a helper, including help named as coming from the LORD. English can make this sound like a minor assist, but the root links the warriors’ aid to a word for help that can carry great weight.
ALSO GROWS
ʿēzer: help; helper
עֵזֶר
The same root names the help the warriors give their brothers and the help sought from the LORD.
ʿezrah: help; assistance
עֶזְרָה
This noun form keeps the act of helping tied to the root that shapes the verse’s command.
מֹשֶׁה
Mōšeh
GROWS FROM
משה
to draw out
Moses’ name carries the meaning “drawn out,” as the naming story explains. Here, the verse names the giver of the land through that image of emergence, while the armed men move outward from their settled place to aid their brothers.
ALSO GROWS
māšāh: to draw out
מָשָׁה
This verb is the root behind the name and its sense of being drawn out.
Mōšeh: Moses; drawn out
מֹשֶׁה
The name preserves the root’s image of emergence within the verse’s reference to Moses.
THE PATTERN
A community’s strength becomes shared when those who can bear more support those who need help.
But Moses’ hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.THE THREAD
My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.The verb translated “help” in Joshua shares the root עזר (ʿ-z-r, help or aid) with the Hebrew noun translated “help” in this psalm. The same root links aid given between brothers with help that comes from the LORD.
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