What Does Joshua 9:1 Mean in the King James?
And it came to pass, when all the kings which were on this side Jordan, in the hills, and in the valleys, and in all the coasts of the great sea over against Lebanon, the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, heard thereof;
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
The report crosses every landscape before it becomes a coalition: the kings’ first shared act is hearing.
THE MEANING
The same news reaches across highlands, valleys, and coasts, bringing distant powers into one shared reality. As this verse speaks now, hearing is the moment scattered parties become aware of one another; the next line shows them gathering into a common response. What reaches the ear can already be changing what comes next.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that information is inert: what people hear can gather them into action.
THE ROOT
וַיִּשְׁמְעוּ
vayyishmeʿu
GROWS FROM
שׁמע
sh-m-ʿ
To hear or listen, with the further sense of heeding.
The form וַיִּשְׁמְעוּ (vayyishmeʿu, and they heard) belongs to a word family that also names a report as שְׁמוּעָה (shemuʿah, report) and includes הִשְׁמִיעַ (hishmîaʿ, cause to hear or announce). English can make hearing sound like passive receipt, while this Hebrew family keeps hearing close to heeding and to the report that carries it; the next verse shows the listeners gathering.
ALSO GROWS
shemaʿ: Hear, listen, or heed.
שְׁמַע
It shows that hearing can shade into a response, a depth the English word “heard” does not always carry.
shemuʿah: A report or tidings; what is heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
It names the message that travels across the landscapes in this verse.
hishmîaʿ: Cause to hear, make heard, or announce.
הִשְׁמִיעַ
It reveals the active side of the same family: what is heard has first been made heard.
THE PATTERN
What people hear gathers them into a shared response.
The people shall hear, and be afraid: sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina.And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is:And when they heard these sayings, they were full of wrath, and cried out, saying, Great is Diana of the Ephesians.THE THREAD
The people shall hear, and be afraid: sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina.Joshua’s וַיִּשְׁמְעוּ (vayyishmeʿu, they heard) and Exodus’s יִשְׁמְעוּ (yishmeʿu, they will hear) grow from שׁמע (sh-m-ʿ, hear or heed). Exodus makes the response explicit: what is heard takes hold of its listeners.
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