What Does Joshua 15:46 Mean in the King James?

From Ekron even unto the sea, all that lay near Ashdod, with their villages:

Joshua 15:46 · KJV

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 boundary includes the villages around the named city, and the Hebrew word for “villages” also carries the image of enclosed dwelling places.

THE MEANING

A place takes shape through its edges as well as its center. Ekron, the settlements beside Ashdod, and the sea lie within one continuous reach; the smaller places belong to the whole.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The verse dissolves the belief that a named center exhausts what belongs to a place: its villages are included in the same reach.

THE ROOT

וְחַצְרֵיהֶן

weḥaṣērêhen

GROWS FROM

חצר

ḥ-ṣ-r

Enclosure; a bounded or settled space.

The word translated “villages” belongs to the same word family as a word for a courtyard: both name enclosed places where life gathers. The verse’s reach therefore includes the settled spaces around the city, not just its name on the map.

ALSO GROWS

ḥāṣēr: Courtyard or court

חָצֵר

This branch shares the image of an enclosed space with the village word.

ḥaṣērîm: Villages or settlements

חֲצֵרִים

Here the word names the inhabited places included alongside Ashdod.

THE PATTERN

A place’s full reach includes the smaller inhabited places gathered around its named center.

Ekron, with her towns and her villages:

Joshua 15:45 · KJVThe same boundary list counts Ekron’s nearby settlements along with the named city.

And I will multiply men upon you, all the house of Israel, even all of it: and the cities shall be inhabited, and the wastes shall be builded:

Ezekiel 36:10 · KJVThe vision of restoration reaches beyond city names to inhabited places and rebuilt ground.

And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.

Matthew 9:35 · KJVThe verse holds cities and villages together as the full field of where people live.

THE THREAD

Ashdod with her towns and her villages, Gaza with her towns and her villages, unto the river of Egypt, and the great sea, and the border thereof:

Joshua 15:47 · KJV

The next verse repeats the same Hebrew word family for the villages around Ashdod and Gaza, making those settlements part of the boundary itself. The line then extends to Egypt’s river and the Great Sea, showing how far the included places reach.

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