What Does Joshua 6:21 Mean in the King James?
And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.
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
“Utterly destroyed” carries the sense of putting the whole city under a ban whose outcome the verse names with the sword.
THE MEANING
The verse confronts you with a total act of killing: women and men, young and old, ox, sheep, and ass are all included. The sentence keeps the violence concrete by naming each category of human and animal life and the sword that kills.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that the verse means only that a city was defeated is undone by its explicit list of people of every age and sex, along with the animals, and its mention of the sword.
THE ROOT
וַיַּחֲרִימוּ
wayyaḥărîmû
GROWS FROM
חרם
To place under the ban; to devote to destruction.
“utterly destroyed” in this verse is wayyaḥărîmû. Here the verb places the city’s contents under the ban, and the verse names the result: all are killed by the sword. The noun חֵרֶם uses the same root for a thing placed under the ban, joining the designation and the destructive act in one word-family.
ALSO GROWS
ḥērem: A ban; a thing placed under the ban or devoted.
חֵרֶם
This noun shows that חרם can name what is placed under the ban as well as the act; Joshua’s list makes the reach of that act concrete.
ḥāram: To ban or devote to destruction.
חָרַם
This verbal form shares all three consonants, חרם, and shows the word-family behind “utterly destroyed”; the verse gives that act its stated outcome in the sword.
THE PATTERN
A text makes the reach of violence visible by naming the people and kinds of life it touches.
Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men.THE THREAD
Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.The Hebrew uses the same root, חרם, for “utterly destroy.” Its list of infants, adults, and animals echoes Joshua’s and makes the shared language of total destruction visible.
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