What Does Joshua 10:41 Mean in the King James?
And Joshua smote them from Kadesh-barnea even unto Gaza, and all the country of Goshen, even unto Gibeon.
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 name יְהוֹשֻׁעַ (Yehoshua, “the LORD delivers”) stands over the verb “smote”: the verse makes the violence within this conquest’s deliverance impossible to miss.
THE MEANING
The sentence makes the campaign’s violence legible as geography: Joshua’s force strikes people from Kadesh-barnea to Gaza and across the country of Goshen to Gibeon. Joshua’s name carries the language of deliverance, while the verse leaves its means in view as blows against people. The named span measures how far that force reaches.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A territorial victory is not only a line on a map: the verb names the people struck across it.
THE ROOT
וַיַּכֵּם
wayyakkēm
GROWS FROM
נכה
n-k-h
to strike, hit, or smite
English “smote” gives the action, while this word-family also names the striker and the blow or plague. The map measures the reach of those impacts across people and place.
ALSO GROWS
makkeh: one who strikes
מַכֶּה
This form names the agent of the blow, keeping the person who strikes present within the root-family.
makkāh: blow, wound, or plague
מַכָּה
This noun names the impact or its damaging result, showing how the same root carries the act and its consequence.
יְהוֹשֻׁעַ
Yehoshua
GROWS FROM
ישע
y-sh-ʿ
to deliver, bringing out from constriction into spaciousness
“Joshua” in this verse is Yehoshua. The name יְהוֹשֻׁעַ (Yehoshua) carries the root יָשַׁע (yasha, “deliver”). Its placement beside “smote” leaves the force of this deliverance visible rather than smoothing the victory into an abstraction.
ALSO GROWS
yasha: to deliver, rescue, or bring out
יָשַׁע
This verbal root is carried inside Joshua’s name, joining the name’s meaning to the action described in the verse.
yeshuah: deliverance
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun names the movement toward deliverance, which the verse holds beside the striking used to establish victory.
THE PATTERN
Scripture makes the reach of an action visible by tracing it between named edges.
In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judæa, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.THE THREAD
And Moses and Aaron did so, as the LORD commanded; and he lifted up the rod, and smote the waters that were in the river, in the sight of Pharaoh, and in the sight of his servants; and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood.The Hebrew verb translated “smote” in both verses comes from נכה (n-k-h), the same root for striking. In Exodus the blow lands on the Nile and becomes a plague; here it lands on people, so the shared root reveals the force of the word while the different targets keep the scenes distinct.
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