What Does Joshua 19:38 Mean in the King James?

And Iron, and Migdal-el, Horem, and Beth-anath, and Beth-shemesh; nineteen cities with their villages.

Joshua 19:38 · 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

Even in a city list, Migdal-el says “tower of God”, and its word for tower grows from the root that also means becoming great.

THE MEANING

The verse presents nineteen cities with their villages as a named, counted landscape. Migdal-el means “tower of God”; Beth-anath and Beth-shemesh mean “house of Anath” and “house of the sun.” The names keep the places’ associations visible within the inheritance.

THE ROOT

מִגְדַּל־אֵל

Migdal-El

GROWS FROM

גדל

To grow, become great, or increase.

Migdal-El means “tower of God,” and its word for tower comes from ⁨גדל⁩, the root of growing or becoming great. The name lets a tower and greatness echo within the same word-family.

ALSO GROWS

gādal: To grow or become great.

גָּדַל

This verb makes the root’s sense of increasing audible beneath the place-name.

gādōl: Great or large.

גָּדוֹל

This familiar adjective shares the root with migdal, linking the tower’s height to the idea of greatness.

migdal: Tower.

מִגְדָּל

This is the first element of Migdal-El and the same Hebrew word used for the tower in Genesis 11:4.

THE PATTERN

A name can compress an association of a person or place into a word the text preserves.

And he called the name of that place Beth-el: but the name of that city was called Luz at the first.

Genesis 28:19 · KJVBethel means “house of God,” so the place’s new name carries an association within it.

And he built there an altar, and called the place El-beth-el: because there God appeared unto him, when he fled from the face of his brother.

Genesis 35:7 · KJVEl-bethel keeps “God” and “Bethel” together in the place-name, compressing the place’s association into its name.

And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone.

John 1:42 · KJVCephas is interpreted as “a stone,” showing a name carrying meaning beyond a label.

THE THREAD

And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

Genesis 11:4 · KJV

The tower here is migdal, the same Hebrew word held in Migdal-El. Genesis joins that tower to making a name and resisting scattering; Joshua’s place-name joins a tower to El.

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