SIL Translator’s Notes on Joshua 21:44

21:44a

And: The Hebrew conjunction that the Berean Standard Bible translates as And indicates the next event in the story. It may be more natural in some languages to omit this conjunction.

the LORD gave them rest on every side: The clause the LORD gave them rest on every side indicates that Yahweh caused the Israelites to have peace throughout their land. The phrase on every side can also be translated “all around them.”

just as He had sworn to their fathers: The clause He had sworn to their fathers indicates that Yahweh had made this promise to the ancestors of the Israelites. The promise to give rest to their ancestors was given in Deuteronomy 12:10. It was repeated in Joshua 1:13.

Here are some other ways to translate this part of the verse:

Yahweh caused them to have peace all around them, just as he had promised their ancestors that he would do.
-or-
Yahweh kept the promise that he had made to their ancestors and gave them rest from war all through their land.

21:44b

None of their enemies could stand against them: The Hebrew clause that the Berean Standard Bible translates as None of their enemies could stand against them is more literally “A man from all their enemies did not stand before them.” This indicates that none of their enemies had been able to fight against them and win.

Here are some other ways to translate this part of the verse:

Not a single one of Israel’s enemies was able to defeat them
-or-
None of their enemies could fight against them and win.

21:44c

for: There is no Hebrew word which corresponds to the word for in the Berean Standard Bible. The Berean Standard Bible added the word for because this clause indicates the reason that Israel’s enemies could not defeat them.

the LORD delivered all their enemies into their hand: The clause the LORD delivered all their enemies into their hand indicates that Yahweh had enabled the Israelites to defeat their enemies.

Here are some other ways to translate this part of the verse:

because⌋ Yahweh had handed all Israel’s enemies over to them
-or-
Yahweh had caused Israel to win over all their enemies.

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Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.

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