What Does Joshua 2:2 Mean in the King James?
And it was told the king of Jericho, saying, Behold, there came men in hither to night of the children of Israel to search out the country.
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 Hebrew pictures the spies’ mission as digging into the land, while the king hears of their arrival before their search is complete.
THE MEANING
A concealed movement can become visible before its purpose is fulfilled. Here the report names both the visitors’ nighttime arrival and their intent to search the land, bringing what is hidden before the king’s attention.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that a hidden plan stays unknown until it is completed: the report exposes the visitors’ presence and purpose while they are still searching.
THE ROOT
לַחְפֹּר
lachpor
GROWS FROM
חפר
ḥ-p-r
To dig or excavate; the verb also describes searching out by probing into what is hidden.
The Hebrew verb for searching the land is literally rooted in digging. The search is imagined as penetrating the land to uncover what it contains, so the English phrase “search out” carries an image of excavation beneath the surface.
ALSO GROWS
chafar: To dig or excavate.
חָפַר
The base verb makes the spies’ search feel like an act of probing into the territory, rather than simply looking across it.
chafruha: They dug it.
חָפְרוּהָ
This form describes people digging a well; the same root can uncover what lies beneath the ground as the spies seek what lies within the land.
THE PATTERN
What is concealed becomes consequential when it is searched out or brought into the open.
It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known.Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.THE THREAD
And ye came near unto me every one of you, and said, We will send men before us, and they shall search us out the land, and bring us word again by what way we must go up, and into what cities we shall come.“Search us out” uses the same חפר (ḥ-p-r) root as Joshua’s “search out.” The shared verb frames the mission as digging into the land, and this verse shows the search yielding a report about its routes and cities.
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