What Does Joshua 11:21 Mean in the King James?
And at that time came Joshua, and cut off the Anakims from the mountains, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the mountains of Judah, and from all the mountains of Israel: Joshua destroyed them utterly with their cities.
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 verse’s sharpest tension is in Joshua’s name: “YHWH delivers” stands beside the destruction of the Anakim and their cities.
THE MEANING
This verse places before you a stark pairing: the name Yehoshua carries “YHWH delivers,” while his action is to cut the Anakim off from the highlands and destroy them with their cities. Its language leaves the violence visible and extends it from people to settlements.
THE ROOT
יְהוֹשֻׁעַ
Yehoshua
GROWS FROM
ישע
Deliver, bring out from constriction toward spaciousness.
“Joshua” in this verse is Yehoshua. Yehoshua’s name joins the divine name YHWH to ישע (yasha), “deliver, bring out”: “YHWH delivers.” The verse places that deliverance-bearing name beside the destruction of people and cities, leaving the tension fully visible.
ALSO GROWS
Yeshua: Deliverance; a shorter form of the name.
יֵשׁוּעַ
It preserves the same deliverance root carried in Yehoshua.
yeshuah: Deliverance.
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun makes explicit the deliverance carried in Joshua’s name.
וַיַּכְרֵת
wayyakhrēt from karat
GROWS FROM
כרת
Cut, sever.
English preserves the image in “cut off” here, but the same root is also used for cutting a covenant. One Hebrew verb names both severing and covenant-making; its force here remains violent.
ALSO GROWS
karat berit: Cut a covenant.
כָּרַת בְּרִית
The same verb that describes severing the Anakim is used for making a covenant.
nikhrat: Be cut off, be severed.
נִכְרַת
This form shows the root’s recurring sense of removal by cutting.
הֶחֱרִימָם
heḥerimam
GROWS FROM
חרם
Place under the ban, devote to destruction.
“Destroyed utterly” translates a different verb from “cut off”: it places the people and their towns under the ban, subject to destruction. The verse extends the violence beyond the people to their cities.
ALSO GROWS
ḥerem: A ban, or something placed under the ban.
חֵרֶם
It names the status behind the destruction described in the verse.
ḥāram: Place under the ban; devote to destruction.
חָרַם
This verb is the root action expressed by “destroyed utterly.”
THE PATTERN
A threat described as impossible to face is ultimately met at the mountain it occupies.
And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.A people great and tall, the children of the Anakims, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say, Who can stand before the children of Anak!Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the LORD spake in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced: if so be the LORD will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the LORD said.THE THREAD
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:Joshua’s “cut off” uses כרת (karat); Genesis uses the same verb where the KJV says “made a covenant.” In Hebrew, severing and covenant-cutting share one root, bringing a striking link between Joshua’s violence and the language of binding promise.
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