What Does Judges 3:5 Mean in the King James?
And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, Hittites, and Amorites, and Perizzites, and Hivites, and Jebusites:
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 word for “dwelt” also means “sat,” so the verse pictures Israel as settled among neighbors who remain distinct and named.
THE MEANING
You live in a shared landscape, where different people occupy the same space without becoming interchangeable. The verb carries the sense of settling or sitting, so this is sustained nearness rather than a passing encounter. The verse keeps each neighboring people visible by name.
THE ROOT
יָשְׁבוּ
yāšəḇû
GROWS FROM
י־ש־ב
y-sh-b
To sit, settle, dwell, or remain.
The verb translated “dwelt” comes from the same root as “sit,” letting Hebrew express dwelling as taking a place and remaining there. Here, that root gives the list of peoples a sense of sustained proximity, while keeping each group distinct.
ALSO GROWS
yōšēḇ: One who dwells; an inhabitant.
יֹשֵׁב
The inhabitant is named through the act of remaining in a place, echoing the settled presence in this verse.
môšāḇ: A seat, dwelling, or settlement.
מוֹשָׁב
This word shows the same root extending from sitting to the place where one settles.
THE PATTERN
Dwelling marks sustained proximity: what shares a place becomes part of its lived setting.
Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom.Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?THE THREAD
Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.The Hebrew behind “sitteth” and “seat” comes from the same root as “dwelt” in Judges 3:5. That shared root links where someone remains with the company and setting in which they sit.
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