What Does Joshua 1:15 Mean in the King James?
Until the LORD have given your brethren rest, as he hath given you, and they also have possessed the land which the LORD your God giveth them: then ye shall return unto the land of your possession, and enjoy it, which Moses the LORD’s servant gave you on this side Jordan toward the sunrising.
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
The verse reveals that one group’s return waits until their brothers also rest and inherit their land.
THE MEANING
Your return is bound to the rest and inheritance of your brothers; your own place remains within a shared completion. The land is given by the LORD, and the verse holds its enjoyment in a sequence where the whole people first receives its portion.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
“I can enjoy my own place while my brothers remain without rest or inheritance.”
THE ROOT
וְיָרְשׁוּ
veyarshu
GROWS FROM
ירש
y-r-sh
To inherit or take possession; in some contexts, to dispossess.
“possessed / enjoy it” in this verse is veyarshu. The brothers “possess” their land, and later the returning tribes “enjoy” theirs, but both verbs come from ירשׁ (y-r-sh), inherit or take possession. The English shifts from possession to enjoyment while Hebrew keeps both groups inside the same inheritance.
ALSO GROWS
yerushah: An inheritance or property received as one’s portion.
יְרֻשָּׁה
It makes the land more than a place to enjoy: it is a portion each person receives.
morashah: An inheritance held as a continuing possession.
מוֹרָשָׁה
It echoes the verse’s movement from land given by God to land each group takes as its own.
יָנִיחַ
yānîaḥ
GROWS FROM
נוח
n-w-ḥ
To settle, rest, or come to rest; in this causative form, to bring someone to rest.
The LORD is the one who brings the brothers into settled rest. Their rest is the condition the verse waits for before the others return to their own land.
ALSO GROWS
nûaḥ: To come to rest or settle in a place.
נוּחַ
It shows rest as arriving at a settled state, which precedes the tribes’ return.
menuchah: Rest or a place of rest.
מְנוּחָה
It carries the sense of rest becoming a place where someone can settle.
אֲחֻזַּתְכֶם
aḥuzzatkhem
GROWS FROM
אחז
ʾ-ḥ-z
To grasp, hold, or take hold.
The “land of your possession” uses a different Hebrew root from the brothers’ “possessed” land. The verse places their inheritance beside the returning tribes’ held estate, binding both to the same shared sequence.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāḥaz: To take hold of or retain.
אָחַז
It gives “possession” the concrete sense of holding land.
ʾaḥuzzah: Property held as an estate or possession.
אֲחֻזָּה
It names the land to which the tribes return after their brothers have received rest and inheritance.
THE PATTERN
Rest becomes a shared condition when the whole household or people is considered, rather than a private reward.
We will not return unto our houses, until the children of Israel have inherited every man his inheritance.Six days thou shalt do thy work, and on the seventh day thou shalt rest: that thine ox and thine ass may rest, and the son of thy handmaid, and the stranger, may be refreshed.There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.THE THREAD
We will not return unto our houses, until the children of Israel have inherited every man his inheritance.Joshua’s “ye shall return” and Numbers’ “We will not return” share the Hebrew root שׁוּב (shuv), meaning return or turn. Numbers makes the condition unmistakable: homecoming waits until each Israelite has received an inheritance.
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