What Does Joshua 24:18 Mean in the King James?
And the LORD drave out from before us all the people, even the Amorites which dwelt in the land: therefore will we also serve the LORD; for he is our God.
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 verse places service after the LORD’s forceful removal of the Amorites, making allegiance a response to prior action rather than a way to secure it.
THE MEANING
The verse puts you before a stark sequence: the LORD drives the Amorites out, and the people answer by serving him. Their stated reason is belonging, “he is our God”, so service follows the act they attribute to him.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that service must earn divine action; here, the LORD’s act comes first and service follows.
THE ROOT
עָבַד
ʿābad
GROWS FROM
עבד
To work, serve.
The verb for serving shares its root with the word for a servant and the word for work or service. That connection opens “we also serve” into lived allegiance, not just a spoken declaration.
ALSO GROWS
ʿeved: Servant.
עֶבֶד
The servant is named by the same root as the act of serving, joining identity with allegiance.
ʿăvōdāh: Work, service.
עֲבוֹדָה
This branch shows service as work and action, giving the people’s answer a lived dimension.
THE PATTERN
The people’s response follows an act of deliverance attributed to God.
And Israel saw that great work which the LORD did upon the Egyptians: and the people feared the LORD, and believed the LORD, and his servant Moses.I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.We love him, because he first loved us.THE THREAD
And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,Deuteronomy repeats the same Hebrew service root and expands the picture to serving with all the heart and soul. That makes Joshua’s brief “we also serve” sound like whole-person allegiance rather than a slogan.
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