What Does Joshua 7:20 Mean in the King James?
And Achan answered Joshua, and said, Indeed I have sinned against the LORD God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done:
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
“I have sinned” names the miss, while “thus and thus have I done” refuses to leave it abstract.
THE MEANING
A hidden miss becomes speakable: the admission names the rupture, then points toward the deed itself. “I have sinned” does not remain a cloudy label; “thus and thus have I done” makes the confession specific. The verse speaks to the reader wherever a general admission is giving way to the actual thing done.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie it undoes is that a general “I was wrong” is the same as bringing the actual deed into view.
THE ROOT
חָטָאתִי
ḥāṭā’tî
GROWS FROM
חטא
ḥ-ṭ-ʾ
To miss or fail to reach.
The Hebrew verb translated “sinned” belongs to the root חטא, the language of missing. A related noun can name the miss itself, and the same root appears in the term for an offering for the missing; the confession reaches beyond a vague label to the rupture that needs to be brought into view.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēt: The miss or failure named as sin.
חֵטְא
It shows that “I have sinned” names a specific missing, not just a feeling of guilt.
ḥaṭṭā’t: The miss, and in a ritual context, an offering for the missing.
חַטָּאת
The same root language extends from naming the miss to what addresses it.
THE PATTERN
Confession moves wrongdoing from concealment into acknowledgment.
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 “I have sinned” and the psalm’s “my sin” grow from חטא (ḥ-ṭ-ʾ), the root of missing. The psalm makes the movement visible: confession means the miss is no longer concealed.
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