What Does Judges 3:3 Mean in the King James?
Namely, five lords of the Philistines, and all the Canaanites, and the Sidonians, and the Hivites that dwelt in mount Lebanon, from mount Baal-hermon unto the entering in of Hamath.
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
This is a map of settled presence: its names mark who occupies the land and how far that presence reaches.
THE MEANING
The landscape before you is not blank: distinct peoples are settled across it, and its reach is marked to a named entrance. The verse makes the ground’s contours and occupants visible before explaining what their presence means.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the idea that the space you occupy is empty or indistinct: its boundaries and presences can be seen and named.
THE ROOT
יֹשְׁבֵי
yoshvei
GROWS FROM
ישב
y-š-b
To sit, remain, or dwell.
“dwelt” in this verse is yoshvei. The Hebrew word describes more than location: these peoples are seated and settled in the landscape. The list names a sustained presence, not a passing encounter.
ALSO GROWS
yashav: To sit, remain, or dwell.
יָשַׁב
The same root makes dwelling a form of settled presence, clarifying that these groups occupy the land.
moshav: Dwelling place or seat.
מוֹשָׁב
This branch carries the root from the act of dwelling to the place where someone is settled.
yoshev: One dwelling there; an inhabitant.
יֹשֵׁב
It names the person by their continuing place in the landscape, as this verse does with the Hivites.
THE PATTERN
Who dwells in a place is part of what the place is.
And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram’s cattle and the herdmen of Lot’s cattle: and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land.A Psalm of David. The earth is the LORD’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:THE THREAD
And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram’s cattle and the herdmen of Lot’s cattle: and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land.The same root, ישב (y-š-b), appears in both verses: yoshvei here and “dwelled” there. In each, the land is described through the people settled on it, so the map takes shape through its inhabitants.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us