What Does Joshua 21:16 Mean in the King James?

And Ain with her suburbs, and Juttah with her suburbs, and Beth-shemesh with her suburbs; nine cities out of those two tribes.

Joshua 21:16 · 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.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

This verse counts a dwelling together with the land around it, and one city’s name, Ain, carries the Hebrew word for a spring.

THE MEANING

The verse names a place to dwell along with the surrounding ground, and Ain carries the image of a spring. It gives habitation a fuller shape: a settled place held together with the space and life around it.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

A home is only its enclosed buildings, and the surrounding space is incidental.

THE ROOT

עַיִן

ʿayin

GROWS FROM

עין

ʿayin

Eye; spring or fountain.

Hebrew ⁨עַיִן⁩ names both the eye and a spring, joining sight with a place where water emerges. The city-name preserves that image beneath the English spelling “Ain.”

ALSO GROWS

eye: The organ of sight.

עַיִן

This branch reveals a meaning the English city-name does not show: Ain shares its word with the eye.

ʿayin: A source of water.

עַיִן

This branch gives Ain the nature of a spring, a place-name carrying an image of water within a list of dwellings.

THE PATTERN

A dwelling’s provision includes both its settled place and the space marked out around it.

Command the children of Israel, that they give unto the Levites of the inheritance of their possession cities to dwell in; and ye shall give also unto the Levites suburbs for the cities round about them.

Numbers 35:2 · KJVCities to dwell in are named alongside the surrounding suburbs, as in Joshua’s list.

The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.

Psalm 16:6 · KJVThe marked-out lines of a dwelling place are described as part of a good inheritance.

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;

Acts 17:26 · KJVThe verse places habitation within bounds, echoing the measured space around these cities.

THE THREAD

And the angel of the LORD found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur.

Genesis 16:7 · KJV

Ain is ⁨עַיִן⁩ (ʿayin), a word that can mean either “eye” or “spring”; Genesis uses it for a fountain. That shared word lets the city-name carry the image of a water source within this list of dwellings.

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