What Does Joshua 16:3 Mean in the King James?

And goeth down westward to the coast of Japhleti, unto the coast of Beth-horon the nether, and to Gezer: and the goings out thereof are at the sea.

Joshua 16:3 · 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.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The boundary faces the sea from the start: what the KJV calls “westward” is literally “sea-ward,” and its “goings out” arrive at that same sea.

THE MEANING

Here a portion becomes legible as a route: the border descends through named places, faces sea-ward, and reaches the sea. Its endpoint is called a going-out, so the boundary has both a limit and an outlet.

THE ROOT

תֹצְאֹתָיו

totsa'otav

GROWS FROM

יצא

y-ṣ-ʾ

To go out, come forth, emerge; its derivatives can name what comes forth or the point of exit.

English “goings out” can sound like endpoints, but ⁨תֹצְאֹתָיו⁩ is built from ⁨יָצָא⁩, “to go out”: the border is described by its going-forth. The same root names the people’s going out from Egypt, so an outward edge and an emergence from confinement share one Hebrew seed.

ALSO GROWS

yatsa: To go out, come forth.

יָצָא

This verb supplies the seed of the border’s “goings out,” making the endpoint a movement outward.

motsa: An outlet; what comes forth.

מֹצָא

This noun from the same root can name a point of emergence, illuminating the border’s ending at the sea.

THE PATTERN

Scripture’s language of going out treats an edge as a point where movement opens outward.

And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.

Genesis 2:10 · KJVThe river’s going out begins a course that spreads beyond its point of origin.

And the border was drawn thence, and compassed the corner of the sea southward, from the hill that lieth before Beth-horon southward; and the goings out thereof were at Kirjath-baal, which is Kirjath-jearim, a city of the children of Judah: this was the west quarter.

Joshua 18:14 · KJVA neighboring boundary passage also names its endpoint as its “goings out.”

I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

John 10:9 · KJVThe door frames an edge as a passage through which movement continues.

THE THREAD

And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.

Exodus 12:41 · KJV

The border’s “goings out” come from ⁨יָצָא⁩ (yatsa, “to go out”), the same root used when the hosts of the LORD “went out” from Egypt. Here the root marks a sea-facing endpoint; there it names a going-out from constriction, joining a geographic edge to an emergence into freedom.

Read the SDV Bible.

Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.

Get Selah Verse

The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.

Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us