What Does Joshua 17:13 Mean in the King James?
Yet it came to pass, when the children of Israel were waxen strong, that they put the Canaanites to tribute; but did not utterly drive them out.
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 verb for “drive them out” shares its root with “inherit” and “possess,” binding the unfinished dispossession to the unfinished possession.
THE MEANING
Strength can arrive while the decisive work remains incomplete: here Israel puts the Canaanites under tribute but does not drive them out. The verse holds that violent, economically useful arrangement in view rather than treating strength as proof of completion.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that becoming strong means the work is finished: strength and an incomplete expulsion stand side by side.
THE ROOT
הוֹרִישׁוּ
hôrîšû
GROWS FROM
ירש
To take possession or inherit; in the causative form, to dispossess someone and so make possession possible.
“utterly drive them out” in this verse is hôrîšû. English makes “drive them out” sound only like removal, but הוֹרִישׁוּ belongs to the root ירש, which also describes possessing or inheriting land. The same word-family holds dispossession and possession together: the expulsion is incomplete, and so is the possession it serves.
ALSO GROWS
yāraš: Inherit; possess
יָרַשׁ
The same root describes receiving the land as a possession, tying inheritance to the dispossession named here.
yerushah: Inheritance; possession
יְרֻשָּׁה
This noun names the possession at stake, showing that incomplete expulsion and incomplete inheritance belong to one root-family.
THE PATTERN
What remains in place can keep shaping the whole, even when it has been reduced to something manageable.
But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell.And it came to pass, when Israel was strong, that they put the Canaanites to tribute, and did not utterly drive them out.A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.THE THREAD
Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments, which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers giveth you.The Hebrew word translated “possess” here comes from the same root as “drive them out” in Joshua 17:13. The shared root reveals that the text joins dispossession with taking possession of the land.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us