What Does Joshua 13:1 Mean in the King James?
Now Joshua was old and stricken in years; and the LORD said unto him, Thou art old and stricken in years, and there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed.
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 years can be nearly spent while the inheritance remains materially unpossessed.
THE MEANING
Your years can be advanced while a great deal remains unfinished. Here the remainder is concrete land still to be possessed; the verb also carries the force of dispossession, so the unfinished task is not made gentle or abstract. Age and incompletion stand together without one canceling the other.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that reaching old age means the work must already be complete is undone here: Joshua is old, and very much land remains to be taken.
THE ROOT
לְרִשְׁתָּהּ
le-rishtah to possess
GROWS FROM
ירשׁ
y-r-sh
To take possession of, inherit, or dispossess.
This root can name inheriting land and dispossessing those who hold it, so “possessed” is not passive ownership. The sentence keeps the conquest concrete: the land still to be taken has not become a completed inheritance merely because Joshua’s days are advanced.
ALSO GROWS
morashah: Heritage or inheritance.
מוֹרָשָׁה
It shows possession as an inheritance, not only as control.
hōrîsh: To dispossess or drive out.
הוֹרִישׁ
This branch preserves the taking from those already in the land; conquest remains visible in the word’s range.
נִשְׁאֲרָה
nish’arah remained
GROWS FROM
שׁאר
sh-ʾ-r
To remain or be left over.
“remaineth” in this verse is nish’arah remained. This verb shares its root with words for a remainder and a remnant. The land is still there as what remains outside possession; Joshua’s age does not make it disappear or declare it complete.
ALSO GROWS
she’ar: The rest or remainder.
שְׁאָר
It makes the remaining land sound like what is still left in the field.
she’erit: What remains; a remnant.
שְׁאֵרִית
It echoes the verse’s insistence that something is still present and unfinished.
THE PATTERN
A person’s present limit and an unfinished future can be true at once.
They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing;Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.THE THREAD
And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.“To inherit it” and “to be possessed” use the same root, ירשׁ (y-r-sh), meaning to take possession of, inherit, or dispossess. Genesis names the land as an inheritance; Joshua names how much of it still remains outside possession.
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