What Does Joshua 6:17 Mean in the King James?
And the city shall be accursed, even it, and all that are therein, to the LORD: only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent.
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 city is placed under the ban, yet Rahab’s name carries spaciousness into it, and her concealment of the messengers is the stated hinge of her household’s survival.
THE MEANING
The verse holds the city and everything in it under the ban to the LORD, while Rahab and everyone with her in the house are named to live. Her concealment of the sent messengers is the stated reason for this exception. The city’s destruction remains explicit; this household’s survival stands inside the same sentence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that a sentence over a whole place necessarily includes everyone without exception: the verse explicitly names Rahab and those in her house to live.
THE ROOT
חֵרֶם
ḥērem
GROWS FROM
חרם
ḥ-r-m
To ban or set apart as devoted, often for destruction.
Here, “accursed” names the city’s status under the ban: it is handed over to the LORD, with destruction as the stated outcome. The word holds dedication and destruction together; Rahab’s household is named as the exception.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāram: To place under the ban or devote.
חָרַם
The verb names the act expressed as the city’s being put under the ban.
ḥērem: A person or thing devoted under the ban.
חֵרֶם
This noun shows that the city itself, not only its inhabitants, is included in the sentence.
רָחָב
Rāḥāḇ
GROWS FROM
רחב
r-ḥ-b
To be wide, widen, or become spacious.
Rahab’s name shares the root רחב, the language of width and spaciousness. That name stands inside the city placed under the ban, while the verse singles out her household to live.
ALSO GROWS
rāḥav: To widen or become spacious.
רָחַב
The verb makes the spaciousness in Rahab’s name an active root, not merely a label.
rōḥav: Breadth or width.
רֹחַב
This noun gives the name’s root a concrete sense of room and breadth amid the city’s sentence.
הֶחְבִּיאָה
heḥbiʾāh
GROWS FROM
חבא
ḥ-b-ʾ
To hide or conceal from sight.
“hid” in this verse is heḥbiʾāh. The verse makes Rahab’s concealment the stated reason her household lives. The same root can describe both the act of hiding and a hiding place, so concealment becomes the setting in which this household is spared.
ALSO GROWS
wayyitḥabbēʾ: And he hid himself.
וַיִּתְחַבֵּא
This form appears in Genesis 3:8; it shows the same root describing concealment, though there the hiding is a withdrawal from God’s presence.
maḥbēʾ: A hiding place.
מַחְבֵּא
This related noun turns the act of concealment into a place, echoing the house where Rahab and her household remain alive.
THE PATTERN
In scenes of judgment, the text names a refuge or boundary within which particular lives are preserved.
Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do any thing till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.For the LORD will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the LORD will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you.And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:THE THREAD
And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.Joshua’s “hid” and Genesis’s “hid themselves” use the root חבא (ḥ-b-ʾ), meaning “hide” or “conceal.” In Genesis, concealment is withdrawal from God’s presence; here, Rahab’s concealment shelters the sent messengers and her household, showing how the same act carries different stakes depending on what is hidden and for whom.
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