What Does Joshua 10:38 Mean in the King James?
And Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, to Debir; and fought against it:
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 campaign moves forward by returning to the place that still resists.
THE MEANING
Return and conflict occupy the same moment: Joshua comes back to Debir with all Israel, and they fight against it. The work continues by facing the place that remains contested.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that returning is retreat: here, the return carries the campaign into its next confrontation.
THE ROOT
וַיָּשָׁב
vayyashav
GROWS FROM
שׁוּב
To turn back, return, or bring back.
“returned” in this verse is vayyashav. Here, the verb means Joshua came back to Debir. The same root can also describe restoration, so return carries more than a change of location: it can be a turning back toward what is to be brought back.
ALSO GROWS
yeshovev: He restores, brings back
יְשׁוֹבֵב
In Psalm 23:3, this form describes restoring the living soul; it shows how the root of Joshua’s return can also name restoration.
meshuvah: Turning away, backsliding
מְשׁוּבָה
This branch names a turning in the opposite direction, revealing that the root’s central image is a change of direction.
THE PATTERN
The next movement goes toward what remains contested or missing.
And he took it, and the king thereof, and all the cities thereof; and they smote them with the edge of the sword, and utterly destroyed all the souls that were therein; he left none remaining: as he had done to Hebron, so he did to Debir, and to the king thereof; as he had done also to Libnah, and to her king.What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?THE THREAD
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.“Restoreth” comes from the same root, שׁוּב (shuv), as Joshua’s “returned.” In Joshua the root describes coming back to a contested place; here it names the bringing back of the living soul.
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