What Does Numbers 21:35 Mean in the King James?
So they smote him, and his sons, and all his people, until there was none left him alive: and they possessed his land.
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 root behind “possessed” can describe both inheriting land and dispossessing its occupants, joining the taking of the land to the destruction that precedes it.
THE MEANING
The verse places a stark sequence before you: the king, his sons, and all his people are killed until no one remains alive, and then their land is taken. Here, possession is inseparable from the destruction of the people who held the land. The sentence ends with no survivor left behind.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that land can change hands as a neutral transfer: here, possession follows the killing of everyone who might remain to hold it.
THE ROOT
וַיִּירְשׁוּ
vayyirshu
GROWS FROM
ירש
To inherit or take possession; depending on the construction, to dispossess those who hold something.
This root can name the new holder’s inheritance or the act of displacing the previous holders. Here, the killing that comes before “possessed” makes that double edge plain.
ALSO GROWS
yōrēsh: One who inherits or takes possession.
יֹרֵשׁ
The word names the one who receives the holding, a perspective on the transfer that follows the deaths in this verse.
morashah: Inheritance or possession.
מוֹרָשָׁה
This noun shows the same root describing what is inherited, while the verse makes visible what the inheritance costs its previous occupants.
וַיַּכּוּ
vayyakku
GROWS FROM
נכה
To strike or strike down.
“smote” in this verse is vayyakku. The root joins the act of striking with words for a blow or plague, keeping bodily harm at the center of the sentence. Its targets expand from the king to his sons and all his people, carrying the violence across the whole community.
ALSO GROWS
makkah: A blow, wound, or plague.
מַכָּה
The noun turns the act of striking into its impact, clarifying the bodily force carried by “smote.”
makkeh: One who strikes.
מַכֶּה
This form keeps the agent of the blow in view as the verse names those struck.
הִשְׁאִיר
hish'ir
GROWS FROM
שאר
To remain or be left over; in this form, to leave something behind.
The word-family concerns what remains, but the verse negates any survivor: nothing is left behind alive. The ending defines the conquest’s completion as the absence of a remnant.
ALSO GROWS
she'erit: A remnant or surviving remainder.
שְׁאֵרִית
This word names the very thing the verse says is not left alive.
she'ar: The rest or remainder.
שְׁאָר
This branch makes the totality of “all his people” sharper: the verse leaves no remainder outside the destruction.
THE PATTERN
These conquest accounts narrate victory through the elimination of the people who inhabit what is taken.
And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain:And all the spoil of these cities, and the cattle, the children of Israel took for a prey unto themselves; but every man they smote with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed them, neither left they any to breathe.THE THREAD
Rise ye up, take your journey, and pass over the river Arnon: behold, I have given into thine hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land: begin to possess it, and contend with him in battle.“Possess” here and “possessed” in Numbers come from the same Hebrew root, ירש (yarash), meaning to inherit or take possession and, in some contexts, to dispossess. Deuteronomy places taking the land beside battle; Numbers shows the outcome as the king and every member of his people are killed.
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