What Does Joshua 17:10 Mean in the King James?
Southward it was Ephraim’s, and northward it was Manasseh’s, and the sea is his border; and they met together in Asher on the north, and in Issachar on the east.
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
A border is also where one territory reaches another: this map defines the land by its points of contact.
THE MEANING
Your place becomes legible through its edges: what lies south, north, west, and east, and which neighboring places touch it. The sea is named as a border, while Asher and Issachar mark adjoining sides. The verse holds distinction and contact together in one map.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A boundary only separates, leaving the territory it bounds isolated.
THE ROOT
יִפְגְּעוּן
yipgeʿun
GROWS FROM
פגע
p-g-ʿ
to encounter, meet, reach, or strike
“met” in this verse is yipgeʿun. The root carries the sense of encounter or contact, and can extend to reaching or striking. Here the territories are more than listed beside one another: their edges come into contact, so the map is drawn through encounters.
ALSO GROWS
pāgaʿ: to meet, encounter, reach, or strike
פָּגַע
Its range includes both meeting and reaching, joining the neighboring lands here to the way a boundary reaches a place elsewhere.
hipgîaʿ: to cause an encounter, bring upon, or intercede
הִפְגִּיעַ
This form carries the root’s sense of bringing things into contact, sharpening the verse’s picture of borders as meeting points.
גְּבוּלוֹ
gevulo
GROWS FROM
גבל
g-b-l
to bound, border, or mark a limit
“border” in this verse is gevulo. The root carries the sense of setting a limit; גְּבוּל can name both a boundary and the territory it bounds. Here the sea makes the allotment locatable, while the neighboring tribes make its other edges relational.
ALSO GROWS
gevul: a border, boundary, or allotted territory
גְּבוּל
The same word can name the edge and the bounded land, joining the territory to the line that defines it.
gābal: to border or set a boundary
גָּבַל
The verbal form shows a boundary as something that marks where one place ends and another begins.
THE PATTERN
A place becomes legible through named limits that mark where its reach ends.
And as for the western border, ye shall even have the great sea for a border: this shall be your west border.Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth.And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;THE THREAD
And their border went up toward the sea, and Maralah, and reached to Dabbasheth, and reached to the river that is before Jokneam;Joshua 19:11 uses the same root פגע for the border reaching Dabbasheth and the river; the KJV renders it “reached,” while Joshua 17:10 renders it “met together.” The Hebrew holds both scenes in one action: a boundary is where one place encounters what lies beside it.
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