What Does Joshua 6:1 Mean in the King James?
Now Jericho was straitly shut up because of the children of Israel: none went out, and none came in.
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 same Hebrew root makes Jericho both the one closing and the one held closed, turning every gate into a complete boundary.
THE MEANING
Jericho is locked in both directions: Israel’s approach seals every route, and nobody crosses the threshold. Now, the verse names the pressure of a closed situation where movement feels impossible both ways.
THE ROOT
סֹגֶרֶת
sogeret
GROWS FROM
סגר
sagar
to shut, close, or confine; in a causative form, to hand over or deliver up
The verse uses the same root twice, once as “closing” and once as “closed”: Jericho is both the one shutting and the one held shut. That root can also describe handing someone over, linking enclosure with surrender to another’s hand.
ALSO GROWS
sagar: to shut, close, or confine
סָגַר
This verb is the seed beneath the doubled forms that describe Jericho’s complete closure.
hisgir: to hand over or deliver up
הִסְגִּיר
The same root can name a transfer into another’s hand, placing the idea of enclosure near surrender.
misgeret: a border or frame
מִסְגֶּרֶת
A frame marks an enclosing edge; here, Jericho’s boundary controls every passage.
THE PATTERN
A sealed passage yields when the power holding it closed is overcome and a way is opened.
For he hath broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder.Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut;And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth;THE THREAD
And hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy: thou hast set my feet in a large room.Both verses use the Hebrew root סגר (sagar, “shut”): Jericho is closed against passage, while the speaker says he has not been shut into an enemy’s hand. The psalm sets that confinement against a “large room,” making the movement from constriction toward spaciousness visible.
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