What Does Joshua 6:18 Mean in the King James?
And ye, in any wise keep yourselves from the accursed thing, lest ye make yourselves accursed, when ye take of the accursed thing, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it.
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
What is marked for destruction can, through one person’s taking, become the condition of the whole camp.
THE MEANING
This is a violent boundary: the ban marks certain things for destruction, and taking from them draws the camp into that same ban. The verse treats the community as exposed to what one person takes, so the consequence moves outward from possession to shared trouble.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that what I take in secret can affect only me is undone here: the text makes the camp share the condition created by the taking.
THE ROOT
חֵרֶם
ḥērem
GROWS FROM
חרם
ḥ-r-m
To ban or devote irrevocably, often to destruction.
The word translated “accursed thing” is ḥērem, something placed under a ban, often for destruction; the same root supplies the verb rendered “make ... accursed.” English can make this sound like an object bearing a curse, while Hebrew repeats the idea of the ban until the camp itself is said to become ḥērem.
ALSO GROWS
ḥērem: A thing placed under the ban or devoted to destruction.
חֵרֶם
This is the repeated word for what the people are told not to take.
heḥĕrîm: To place something under the ban or devote it to destruction.
הֶחֱרִים
This verbal branch shows the ban as an action whose consequence reaches the camp.
שִׁמְרוּ
shimru
GROWS FROM
שמר
š-m-r
To guard, watch, or keep.
The command to “keep yourselves” comes from the same root used for guarding and watching. The verse frames the boundary as something the people must guard against crossing, with the camp’s shared condition at stake.
ALSO GROWS
shōmēr: A guard or watchman.
שֹׁמֵר
The guard watches a boundary, echoing the verse’s command to keep away from the ban.
mishmeret: A charge, guard duty, or watch.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
This branch carries the sense of a responsibility held in keeping, not merely an inward feeling.
וַעֲכַרְתֶּם
vaʿakartem
GROWS FROM
עכר
ʿ-k-r
To trouble, disturb, or bring calamity.
The verb translated “trouble” shares its root with Achor, the Valley of Trouble, named in the account of the taking being exposed. The consequence is given a place-name: the trouble does not remain an abstract warning.
ALSO GROWS
ʿĀkhôr: Achor, “Trouble,” the name of a valley.
עָכוֹר
Joshua 7:26 gives this name to the place where the communal consequence unfolds.
ʿōkhēr: A troubler, one who brings trouble.
עֹכֵר
This form makes the root describe a person associated with the trouble, as in “the troubler of Israel” in 1 Kings 18:17.
THE PATTERN
What crosses a communal boundary through one person’s taking can place the whole community under its consequence.
Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it: but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing: for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against the children of Israel.Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?THE THREAD
But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing: for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against the children of Israel.Joshua 7:1 repeats חֵרֶם (ḥērem, “the thing under the ban”), naming the taking as a trespass in it. The verse then names Israel collectively as bearing the consequence, unfolding the transfer Joshua 6:18 states.
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