What Does Joshua 7:19 Mean in the King James?
And Joshua said unto Achan, My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the LORD God of Israel, and make confession unto him; and tell me now what thou hast done; hide it not from me.
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
Giving God glory here means letting the truth of the deed bear its full weight in the open.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to the moment when a deed is hidden and truth is asked for: giving God glory gives what happened its full weight in speech. Confession turns toward God and immediately becomes plain disclosure to the person asking. The request holds these together as one act of acknowledgment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that honoring God can stay abstract while the truth about what you have done remains concealed.
THE ROOT
כָּבוֹד
kavod
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
To be heavy or weighty.
Kavod means weight: the request to give glory asks that reality be treated as weighty before God. Here, truth-telling gives the hidden deed its full measure.
ALSO GROWS
kaved: Heavy, weighty.
כָּבֵד
This branch makes the image inside kavod visible: glory carries the sense of weight.
kibbed: To honor or treat as weighty.
כִּבֵּד
To honor is to assign something its due weight, which links giving glory with facing the truth of what happened.
תּוֹדָה
todah
GROWS FROM
ידה
y-d-h
To acknowledge, give thanks, or praise.
The Hebrew phrase is “give him תּוֹדָה (todah, acknowledgment or thanksgiving),” so confession carries the sense of openly acknowledging what is true before God. Its y-d-h family also carries praise, joining truthful disclosure with recognition of God.
ALSO GROWS
yadah: To acknowledge, praise, or give thanks.
יָדָה
This verb belongs to the family behind todah, showing confession as an act of acknowledgment.
Yehudah: Judah, a name linked in Genesis 29:35 to “I will praise” (אוֹדֶה, odeh).
יְהוּדָה
The shared y-d-h family holds confession beside praise: naming what is true is also an act of recognition.
THE PATTERN
Confession brings concealed action into truthful speech before God.
I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah.He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.THE THREAD
I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah.Joshua’s תּוֹדָה (todah, acknowledgment or confession) and the Psalm’s אֹודֶה (odeh, I confess or acknowledge) arise from ידה (y-d-h, acknowledge or praise). The psalm pairs confession with “I have not hid” and release, making explicit the movement already compressed into Joshua’s request: naming the truth brings what was concealed into view.
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