Joshua23:1–16

Where the English smooths the original

• וַיְהִי The verse opens with וַיְהִי, a whole clause — “and it came to pass” (root hāyāh) — that the BSB compresses into the subordinating “A long time after.”
• מִיָּמִים Hebrew says מִיָּמִים, literally “from days” (the idiom for “a long while”), not the abstract “a long time”; Gill renders it “after many days.”
• הֵנִיחַ הֵנִיחַ is the Hiphil of nûaḥ — “caused to rest, gave rest”; the English “had given Israel rest” is faithful but loses that the rest is something actively granted by YHWH, not merely arrived at.
• בָּא בַּיָּמִים בָּא בַּיָּמִים is the idiom “come into the days” — Cambridge notes Wyclif’s “of ful eld age”; “well along in years” modernizes a Hebrew picture of one who has literally walked far into his days.

Where the English smooths the original

• וַיִּקְרָא וַיִּקְרָא is “and he called / summoned” (root qārāʼ) — a formal convening, not the neutral “he summoned”; the same verb is used to call an assembly before the LORD.
• לִזְקֵנָיו The Hebrew prefixes a single lᵉ- (“to/for”) to each class and joins only with waw; Ellicott, Barnes, and Cambridge all note the first English “and” (“and its elders”) is not in the Hebrew — the elders, heads, judges, and officers are “all Israel,” named in apposition.
• וּלְרָאשָׁיו רָאשָׁיו is literally “its heads” (root rōʼš, “head”); “leaders” is a smooth gloss that hides the bodily metaphor of the tribal heads.
• זָקַנְתִּי Now in the first person, זָקַנְתִּי — “I have grown old” — echoing v. 1’s zāqēn; Joshua applies to himself the very word the narrator used of him.

Where the English smooths the original

• וְאַתֶּם Hebrew fronts the emphatic pronoun וְאַתֶּם — “and you, you-yourselves have seen”; the stress on the eyewitnesses (Geneva: “Your eyes bearing witness”) is flattened in “and you have seen.”
• מִפְּנֵיכֶם מִפְּנֵיכֶם is literally “from before your faces”; the Pulpit Commentary and K&D both correct “for your sake” to “before you” — the nations fell out of Israel’s path, not merely on Israel’s behalf.
• הוּא The independent הוּא, “he [himself]”, is added for emphasis — “for HE, YHWH your God, is the one fighting”; Cambridge and JFB note Joshua “of his own merits and exploits makes no mention.”
• הַנִּלְחָם הַנִּלְחָם is a participle (Niphal of lāḥam) — “the one fighting / who keeps fighting” for you, ongoing — not the simple past “fought.”

Where the English smooths the original

• הִפַּלְתִּי הִפַּלְתִּי is literally “I have caused to fall” (Hiphil of nāp̄al) — the Pulpit Commentary supplies “the lot”: “caused [the lot] to fall.” “Allotted” is the right sense but buries the falling-lot image.
• הַנִּשְׁאָרִים הַנִּשְׁאָרִים, “the ones remaining / left over” (root šāʼar) — Ellicott and Cambridge stress these are nations not yet conquered, deliberately included in the allotment.
• מְבוֹא הַשָּׁמֶשׁ מְבוֹא הַשָּׁמֶשׁ is literally “the entering / going-in of the sun” — i.e., sunset, hence “west”; Gill and the Pulpit Commentary note the Hebrew says “where the sun sets,” not the bare compass-point “westward.”
• הַיָּם הַגָּדוֹל הַיָּם הַגָּדוֹל, “the Great Sea” — the Mediterranean, so named (Gill) by contrast with the small inland seas; the BSB keeps the title but the Hebrew has no preposition, leaving the boundary to be completed from the parallel clause (K&D).

Where the English smooths the original

• יֶהְדֳּפֵם יֶהְדֳּפֵם is the rare verb hādap̄, “thrust / shove away” (only 11 times in Scripture). The Pulpit Commentary flags it as “the unusual word found in Deuteronomy 6:19; 9:4… another instance of quotation from Deuteronomy.” “Push them out” is right but loses the rarity that ties this line to Moses.
• וְהוֹרִישׁ וְהוֹרִישׁ and וִירִשְׁתֶּם share one root, yārash — God dispossesses the nations so Israel may take their place; English splits it into unrelated verbs (“drive out” / “take possession”), hiding the single Hebrew idea of inheriting by displacement.
• דִּבֶּר דִּבֶּר (Piel of dāḇar) is the formal verb of covenant-speech, “spoke / pledged”; “promised” supplies the right force but the Hebrew simply says “as YHWH your God spoke to you,” grounding the future in God’s prior word.

Where the English smooths the original

• וַחֲזַקְתֶּם וַחֲזַקְתֶּם מְאֹד is “be exceedingly strong” — the Pulpit Commentary: “The original is stronger, Be ye exceedingly courageous.” It is the very word YHWH spoke to Joshua himself in Joshua 1:7; he now hands the same nerve to the people.
• לִשְׁמֹר Two infinitives, לִשְׁמֹר וְלַעֲשׂוֹת — “to keep and to do”; the BSB’s “keep and obey” doubles a single idea, but Hebrew distinguishes guarding the law (šāmar) from doing it.
• סוּר סוּר, “to turn aside” — the road metaphor: not to swerve from the law to the right or the left. Benson reads the two sides as “adding to the law, or diminishing from it.”

Where the English smooths the original

• בוֹא בוֹא, “to go in / come in” — Poole and Ellicott note it is the same verb used of “coming in to a woman,” so it already hints at the intermarriage forbidden in v. 12; “associate with” is correct but loses the marital undertone.
• תַזְכִּירוּ תַזְכִּירוּ (Hiphil of zākar) is “cause to be remembered / make mention of”; the Pulpit Commentary explains it can mean to bring to remembrance or to celebrate — “let them not be named among you,” the names of the idols to be forgotten entirely.
• תַשְׁבִּיעוּ תַשְׁבִּיעוּ is causative — “nor cause [others] to swear” by them; Poole: “nor require nor compel the Gentiles to swear by them,” a sharper command than the BSB’s plain “or swear by them.”
• תִשְׁתַּחֲווּ תִשְׁתַּחֲווּ (Hishtaphel of šāḥâ) is “prostrate yourselves” — full bodily worship; with “serve,” “swear,” and “make mention,” K&D counts these as “the four outward forms of divine worship.”

Where the English smooths the original

• תִּדְבָּקוּ תִּדְבָּקוּ (root dāḇaq) is “cling / cleave / be glued to” — the same verb used of a man cleaving to his wife (Genesis 2:24). “Hold fast” is faithful, but the Hebrew is the intimate language of bonding, set deliberately against v. 12’s clinging to the nations.
• כִּי אִם The verse opens כִּי אִם, an adversative “but rather / instead” — the positive counter-command to v. 7’s string of prohibitions; the BSB’s single “Instead” captures the pivot well.
• עַד הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה עַד הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה, “unto this day” — Poole and Gill restrict it to “since you came into Canaan,” the nation as a whole, “not of every particular person,” who had not fallen into gross apostasy.

Where the English smooths the original

• וַיּוֹרֶשׁ וַיּוֹרֶשׁ (Hiphil of yārash) is “caused to be dispossessed” — the same inheritance-by-displacement root as v. 5; “driven out” is right but the verb specifically means to take possession away.
• וַעֲצוּמִים גְּדֹלִים וַעֲצוּמִים, “great and mighty/numerous”; Gill stresses the Canaanites were “very numerous and populous… of a gigantic stature… with chariots of iron” — the adjectives magnify the victory God alone won.
• עָמַד עָמַד, “has stood / taken a stand” — a military term for holding one’s ground; “stand against you” is faithful, the Hebrew picturing an enemy who cannot so much as plant his feet before Israel.

Where the English smooths the original

• יִרְדָּף יִרְדָּף, “shall pursue / chase” (root rādap̄); the BSB’s “put… to flight” paraphrases — the Hebrew pictures one Israelite running after a thousand, the rout already underway.
• אֶלֶף אֶלֶף is the bare numeral “a thousand”, with the object “to flight” supplied by the translators (note the gloss’s brackets); the force is the lopsided ratio — one against a thousand — promised in Deuteronomy 28:7 and Leviticus 26:8.
• הַנִּלְחָם הוּא הַנִּלְחָם לָכֶם repeats v. 3 verbatim — “he, the one fighting for you”; Poole draws the moral: “impute not this therefore to your own valour… but to God’s gracious and powerful assistance.”

Where the English smooths the original

• וְנִשְׁמַרְתֶּם וְנִשְׁמַרְתֶּם לְנַפְשֹׁתֵיכֶם is literally “guard yourselves as to your souls” — the Pulpit Commentary: “take heed exceedingly to your souls,” i.e. “as you value your lives.” “Watch yourselves carefully” thins out the warning that life itself is at stake.
• מְאֹד The same intensifier מְאֹד (“exceedingly”) that armed the command in v. 6 now sharpens the guard in v. 11 — strength to obey, vigilance to love; the BSB’s “carefully” undersells mᵉʼōd.
• לְאַהֲבָה לְאַהֲבָה, “to love” (root ʼāhaḇ) — the whole law reduced to one verb. K&D calls love of God “the sum of the fulfilment of the law” (Deuteronomy 6:5); the vigilance of v. 11 exists for the sake of love.

Where the English smooths the original

• שׁוֹב תָּשׁוּבוּ שׁוֹב תָּשׁוּבוּ is the infinitive-absolute construction — “if turning, you turn back”, an emphatic “if you ever in any wise turn back”; English “turn away” loses the doubled, insistent šûḇ.
• וּדְבַקְתֶּם וּדְבַקְתֶּם is the same verb dāḇaq (“cling”) used in v. 8 of cleaving to YHWH; the apostasy is portrayed as misdirected devotion — clinging to the nations instead of to God. The single repeated root is the whole point.
• וְהִתְחַתַּנְתֶּם וְהִתְחַתַּנְתֶּם (Hithpael of ḥātan) is the technical verb “to make oneself a son-in-law / intermarry”; Poole notes “go in unto them” that follows “notes the matrimonial act.” The BSB’s “intermarry and associate” is faithful but clinical.

Where the English smooths the original

• יָדוֹעַ תֵּדְעוּ יָדוֹעַ תֵּדְעוּ is again the infinitive absolute — “knowing you shall know”, Gill’s “know ye for a certainty”; the BSB’s “know for sure” carries the sense but not the doubled Hebrew emphasis.
• לְפַח וּלְמוֹקֵשׁ לְפַח וּלְמוֹקֵשׁ, “for a snare and a trap”; Cambridge and the Pulpit Commentary explain the paḥ is a fowler’s spring-net laid on the ground (so Amos 3:5), the môqēš a noose that catches the foot. Vivid hunting imagery behind the abstract “snare and trap.”
• וּלְשֹׁטֵט וּלְשֹׁטֵט, “a scourge / whip” — K&D notes this emphatic form “only occurs here” in all Scripture; a hapax. “A scourge in your sides” is right; the rarity of the word marks the singular vehemence of the threat.
• וְלִצְנִנִים וְלִצְנִנִים בְּעֵינֵיכֶם, “and for thorns in your eyes” — drawn straight from Numbers 33:55 (ṣānîn, “thorn,” occurs in only two verses). Cambridge: “The warnings of Joshua are severer even than those of Moses.”

Where the English smooths the original

• הוֹלֵךְ הוֹלֵךְ בְּדֶרֶךְ כָּל־הָאָרֶץ is the gentle idiom “going the way of all the earth” — Benson: “To die is to go a journey, a journey to our long home.” The BSB keeps the euphemism; Hebrew literally has Joshua walking a road all the living must walk.
• דָּבָר אֶחָד דָּבָר אֶחָד, “one word / thing”, and the verb נָפַל (“fall”): the idiom is “not one word has fallen [to the ground]” — i.e., gone unfulfilled. “Has failed” is the right meaning of a vivid Hebrew picture of a word dropping unfulfilled.
• בָּאוּ הַכֹּל בָּאוּ לָכֶם — literally “the whole has come to you” (root bôʼ, “come”); “Everything was fulfilled” is accurate, but the Hebrew says the promises themselves came, as living things arriving.

Where the English smooths the original

• כָּל־הַטּוֹב כָּל־הַטּוֹב … הַדָּבָר and כָּל־הָרָע הַדָּבָר are “every good word” and “every evil word”; the Pulpit Commentary: “Literally, all the good word… all the evil word.” The BSB’s “every good thing”/“the calamity” loses the deliberate word-for-word symmetry on which Joshua’s argument hangs.
• הָרָע הָרָע, “the evil / calamity” — the same noun for moral evil and disaster; Joshua’s logic (Poole, Benson): God’s faithfulness in keeping the good word is itself the pledge that he will keep the evil word too.
• הַשְׁמִידוֹ הַשְׁמִידוֹ (Hiphil infinitive of šāmad) is “his destroying / exterminating” — the strongest verb of annihilation, the very thing done to the Canaanites now threatened against Israel on the same land.

Where the English smooths the original

• בְּעָבְרְכֶם בְּעָבְרְכֶם (infinitive of ʻāḇar, “cross over”) is literally “in your crossing-over” the covenant — the same verb used of crossing the Jordan into the land; to break covenant is, by a grim pun, to cross a line. “If you transgress” keeps the legal sense, not the spatial image.
• אַף־יְהוָה וְחָרָה אַף־יְהוָה … וְחָרָה — אַף is literally “the nose / nostril,” and חָרָה means “grow hot, burn.” The idiom is “the nostril of YHWH will burn” — anthropomorphic heat of anger; “the anger of the LORD will burn” renders the sense, not the flaring-nostril picture.
• וַאֲבַדְתֶּם מְהֵרָה מְהֵרָה וַאֲבַדְתֶּם, “quickly you will perish” — Cambridge and Ellicott note this clause stands “word for word” in Deuteronomy 11:17; the curse is Moses’ own, recited back to the people.