What Does Joshua 10:26 Mean in the King James?
And afterward Joshua smote them, and slew them, and hanged them on five trees: and they were hanging upon the trees until the evening.
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
Hebrew repeats the root for “hang,” making the bodies’ exposure until evening a distinct act after the killing.
THE MEANING
The verse holds the violence in plain sequence: Joshua strikes them, kills them, and leaves their bodies hanging on five trees until evening. The repeated Hebrew verb keeps the focus on what is done to their bodies after death.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The violence ends once the victims are dead. This verse shows their bodies remain exposed afterward, so death is followed by public display.
THE ROOT
וַיִּתְלֵם
wayyitlem
GROWS FROM
תלה
t-l-h
To hang or suspend.
“hanged / hanging” in this verse is wayyitlem. “Hanged” and “hanging” are forms of the same root: the verse repeats the action and holds attention on the bodies after death. Its final detail, “until the evening,” gives that exposure a clear limit.
ALSO GROWS
talui: Hanging, suspended
תָּלוּי
This participle shares the root with the verse’s description of the bodies’ continuing state.
teliya: Hanging, suspension
תְּלִיָּה
This noun names the act or condition the repeated verb keeps in view.
יְהוֹשֻׁעַ
Yehoshua
GROWS FROM
ישע
y-sh-ʿ
Deliver; bring out of constriction into spaciousness.
“Joshua” in this verse is Yehoshua. Yehoshua joins the divine name with the root of deliverance. Here that name belongs to the one carrying out the killing and hanging, so its deliverance-language stands beside the violence without concealing it.
ALSO GROWS
yasha: Deliver, bring out
יָשַׁע
This is the action root carried in Yehoshua’s name.
yeshuah: Deliverance
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun from the same root makes the deliverance-language in the name visible.
THE PATTERN
A body hung on a tree is a public sign with time-bound exposure, and the text names that hanging as a curse.
And the king of Ai he hanged on a tree until eventide: and as soon as the sun was down, Joshua commanded that they should take his carcase down from the tree, and cast it at the entering of the gate of the city, and raise thereon a great heap of stones, that remaineth unto this day.His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that thy land be not defiled, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:THE THREAD
His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that thy land be not defiled, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.Joshua’s “hanged” and Deuteronomy’s “hanged” come from the same Hebrew root, תלה (t-l-h), and both pair it with עֵץ (ets, tree or wood). Deuteronomy makes the dusk boundary explicit: the body must not remain overnight, and the hanging is named as accursed.
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