What Does Joshua 19:35 Mean in the King James?
And the fenced cities are Ziddim, Zer, and Hammath, Rakkath, and Chinnereth,
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 list holds fortification and heat together: its stronghold word marks a place made inaccessible, while Hammath preserves the name of hot springs.
THE MEANING
A boundary can do more than confine: here its word carries the sense of a stronghold, a place made hard to enter. The names keep that defense particular and located, while Hammath remembers heat and water within the same landscape.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that every boundary is only a restriction gives way here: an enclosure can also protect what is within it.
THE ROOT
מִבְצָר
mivtsar
GROWS FROM
בצר
b-ṣ-r
To cut off or make inaccessible; to fortify or enclose.
The word rendered “fenced” names a stronghold, a place made difficult to enter. The same root also yields the word for vintage, linking fortification and harvest through the idea of cutting off or setting apart.
ALSO GROWS
batsur: Fortified; inaccessible.
בָּצוּר
This describes the defended condition of the cities named in the verse.
batsir: Vintage; grape harvest.
בָּצִיר
The same root’s harvest branch preserves the sense of cutting off and gathering what has been set apart.
חַמַּת
Hammath
GROWS FROM
חמם
ḥ-m-m
To be hot or warm.
Hammath is commonly understood as “hot springs,” keeping a feature of the place in its name. Beside the fortified-city word, it adds heat and water to the verse’s picture of defended places.
ALSO GROWS
ḥom: Heat; warmth.
חֹם
This names the quality preserved in Hammath’s place-name.
ḥammah: Heat; the sun.
חַמָּה
This branch carries the same warmth that the name Hammath evokes.
THE PATTERN
Fortification makes protection visible as architecture: it can mark a city, offer refuge, or form a stronghold that is pulled down.
Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; that ye may tell it to the generation following.The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)THE THREAD
All these cities were fenced with high walls, gates, and bars; beside unwalled towns a great many.Deuteronomy uses בְּצֻרוֹת (betsurot, fortified), another form of the root behind מִבְצָר (mivtsar, stronghold) in Joshua. Joshua compresses the fortification into one word; Deuteronomy opens that word into high walls, gates, and bars.
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