What Does Joshua 10:35 Mean in the King James?
And they took it on that day, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were therein he utterly destroyed that day, according to all that he had done to Lachish.
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
“All the souls” makes the totality brutally human: the conquest includes every living person in the city.
THE MEANING
The verse confronts you with a conquest that does not stop at taking a city: every living person inside is killed. “All the souls” keeps that totality attached to people, while “utterly destroyed” names the force inflicted on them.
THE ROOT
הֶחֱרִים
heḥĕrîm
GROWS FROM
חרם
To place under a ban or devote irrevocably; here, the consequence is destruction.
The root carries the force of placing the inhabitants under a ban, and in this verse that status means they are killed. “Utterly destroyed” expresses a total act, not merely defeat in battle.
ALSO GROWS
ḥērem: A ban; something devoted or placed under a ban.
חֵרֶם
This noun shows the categorical force behind the verb: the city’s inhabitants are treated as under a total ban.
vayyaḥărîmû: They placed under the ban; they utterly destroyed.
וַיַּחֲרִימוּ
This form of the same verb appears in Joshua 6:21, linking the word to the same total destruction of a city’s inhabitants.
הַנֶּפֶשׁ
hannephesh
GROWS FROM
נפש
A living self: a person, life, or living being.
Here, nephesh names the living people in the city. The word keeps “souls” grounded in vulnerable human lives rather than leaving it as an abstraction.
ALSO GROWS
nephesh ḥayyah: Living being.
נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה
This phrase uses the same noun for a living creature, showing how nephesh can name a whole living being.
nāphaš: To be refreshed or rest.
נָפַשׁ
The related verb points to a living self that can be restored; here, those living selves are instead killed.
THE PATTERN
The herem formula frames conquest as total destruction, with the inhabitants treated as a population that is not spared.
And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee:Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.THE THREAD
But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee:Deuteronomy uses the same root, חרם (ḥ-r-m), for the command to destroy every living inhabitant of designated cities. That shared root reveals the categorical force behind “utterly destroyed” in Joshua: the verse describes total killing, not a limited defeat.
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