What Does Joshua 10:21 Mean in the King James?

And all the people returned to the camp to Joshua at Makkedah in peace: none moved his tongue against any of the children of Israel.

Joshua 10:21 · 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 Hebrew for “moved his tongue” carries the edge of sharpening: their shalom includes no hostile tongue raised against them.

THE MEANING

The return is called shalom, wholeness, and no one sharpens a tongue against the people. Safety here means more than making it back alive; even hostile speech has no opening against them.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

Safety is only the absence of bodily harm, and hostile words are harmless. The verse includes freedom from verbal attack in the people’s wholeness.

THE ROOT

חָרַץ

charats

GROWS FROM

ח־ר־ץ

To cut sharply or sharpen; the same root also carries the senses of determining or decreeing.

“moved” in this verse is charats. The phrase pictures a tongue being sharpened, so speech itself carries an edge. The people return with no hostile word honed against them.

ALSO GROWS

charuts: Sharp, keen; also diligent.

חָרוּץ

This branch makes the cutting edge behind “moved” visible: the tongue is imagined as something that could be made keen against them.

necherats: Determined, decided, or decreed.

נֶחֱרָץ

The root also reaches toward what is settled; here, no hostile word is formed into an act against Israel.

שָׁלוֹם

shalom

GROWS FROM

ש־ל־ם

To be complete, sound, or intact.

“peace” in this verse is shalom. Shalom frames the return as wholeness, not merely a pause in conflict. Beside the unsharpened tongue, it includes safe arrival without verbal attack.

ALSO GROWS

shalem: Whole, complete, or intact.

שָׁלֵם

This branch shows the sense of wholeness carried by the people’s return in shalom.

shillem: To repay or make good.

שִׁלֵּם

The root’s reach into making something complete adds depth to shalom as an intact condition, not simply quiet.

THE PATTERN

Scripture treats the tongue as a force that can wound, so safety from hostile speech is part of wholeness.

Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man: thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues.

Psalm 31:20 · KJVProtection from the strife of tongues is named as shelter, showing that safety includes relief from verbal attack.

There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health.

Proverbs 12:18 · KJVSpeech is pictured as a blade that can pierce, making the absence of a sharpened tongue a real form of safety.

And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.

James 3:6 · KJVThe tongue is described as a force capable of spreading harm, echoing the danger absent from Israel’s return.

THE THREAD

But against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast: that ye may know how that the LORD doth put a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.

Exodus 11:7 · KJV

Joshua’s “moved his tongue” repeats the Hebrew verb used here: “not a dog move his tongue.” The shared sharpen/cut root makes verbal hostility visible as an edge that never gets raised against Israel.

Read the SDV Bible.

Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.

Get Selah Verse

The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.

Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us