What Does Judges 11:24 Mean in the King James?
Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess? So whomsoever the LORD our God shall drive out from before us, them will we possess.
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 Hebrew uses one root for both “drive out” and “possess,” exposing possession as the other side of dispossession.
THE MEANING
The verse puts two claims side by side: one side receives what its god grants, while the other takes possession of what the LORD drives out. The same grammar links inheritance to displacement, so the exchange is visible from both sides. The claim of possession does not erase the person or people displaced.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The idea that inheritance can be understood only from the receiver’s side. This verse pairs each claim of possession with someone else being driven out.
THE ROOT
יוֹרִישְׁךָ
yôrîšəkā
GROWS FROM
ירשׁ
To come into possession or inherit; in the causative form, to give possession, often by driving another out.
“possess / drive out” in this verse is yôrîšəkā. English makes “drive out” and “possess” sound like separate actions, but the verse repeats the same root, ירשׁ, in causative and receiving forms. The language holds together what one side experiences as dispossession and what the other calls inheritance.
ALSO GROWS
yārash: To inherit, take possession, or dispossess.
יָרַשׁ
This is the root verb behind the verse’s repeated claims of possession.
hôrîš: To cause to inherit or take possession; to dispossess or drive out.
הוֹרִישׁ
This causative form is translated “giveth thee to possess” and “shall drive out,” linking the grant to the displacement.
yerushah: Inheritance or possession.
יְרֻשָּׁה
This noun shows how the root names what is received as well as the act of taking possession.
THE PATTERN
Scripture frames possession of land as an inheritance received from God, while the boundaries of that inheritance determine who occupies it.
And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.The Horims also dwelt in Seir beforetime; but the children of Esau succeeded them, when they had destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their stead; as Israel did unto the land of his possession, which the LORD gave unto them.Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.THE THREAD
So now the LORD God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and shouldest thou possess it?The verse before this one uses the same Hebrew root for “dispossessed” and “possess.” Judges 11:24 repeats that root across the claims made for Chemosh and the LORD, making the shared logic of displacement and inheritance clear.
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