What Does Joshua 7:11 Mean in the King James?
Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them: for they have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen, and dissembled also, and they have put it even among their own stuff.
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 hidden among ordinary possessions remains inside the covenant breach; concealment becomes part of the act.
THE MEANING
A breach takes shape as a sequence: missing, crossing the covenant, taking, stealing, deception, and hiding what was taken among ordinary possessions. The hidden thing remains part of the shared breach; folding it into someone’s belongings does not make the rupture disappear.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what is concealed becomes private or separate from the breach: the hidden thing remains part of it.
THE ROOT
חָטָא
ḥāṭāʾ
GROWS FROM
חטא
To miss or go wrong; hence, to incur guilt.
The word for sin opens onto missing, and the verse gathers the later acts, crossing, taking, stealing, deception, and hiding, into one breach. Its singular wording, “Israel hath sinned,” holds the whole sequence together as a shared failure.
ALSO GROWS
chet: A missing; an offense.
חֵטְא
This noun keeps the sense of missing inside the word translated as sin.
chatta’t: A missing or offense; in sacrificial use, an offering for the missing.
חַטָּאת
The same root links the naming of the breach with the language of an offering for what has gone wrong.
כִּחֲשׁוּ
kiḥăšû
GROWS FROM
כחש
To deny, lie, or deceive.
“Dissembled” can sound like a private mask, while this Hebrew verb names denial and deception. The verse places that denial beside theft and the concealment of what was taken, joining the false account to the hidden possession.
ALSO GROWS
kakhash: Deceit or falsehood.
כַּחַשׁ
This noun makes explicit the falsehood carried by the verb in the verse.
mekhachesh: One who denies or deceives.
מְכַחֵשׁ
This form names the agent of denial, showing how the verb describes an enacted deception.
THE PATTERN
Concealment folded into ordinary life does not cancel a breach; it leaves what is hidden inside it.
He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.THE THREAD
And Achan answered Joshua, and said, Indeed I have sinned against the LORD God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done:The same Hebrew root, חטא (chata, to miss or incur guilt), moves from “Israel hath sinned” to “I have sinned.” The shared wording holds the collective breach and the individual admission together.
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