Joshua 12:13

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

the king of Debir, one; the king of Geder, one;

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

1 hapax legomenon — only here in the Hebrew Bible
1 first appearance in the Hebrew Bible

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גֶּ֖דֶר

Geder

H1445

“Geder”

Noun, Proper

Appears 1× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears here

Full BDB Definition

Origin: the same as H1444

TWOT: None

Geder = "wall" - one of the Canaanite towns captured in the Promised Land by Joshua and the Israelites

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

6: words
4: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

1 hapax legomenon — a word that appears only here in the entire Hebrew Bible:

גֶּ֖דֶר Geder H1445

First appearance in Scripture

This word makes its first canonical appearance in the Hebrew Bible here:

גֶּ֖דֶר Geder H1445

Shared distinctive vocabulary

דְּבִר֙ Debir H1688 occurs in 12 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

4 nouns
2 adjectives

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

מֶ֤לֶךְ king H4428 ×2
אֶחָ֔ד one H259 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 10 words from the Hebrew and 8 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 6 Hebrew tokens and 4 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Joshua 12:13 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Joshua 10:38 Joshua returned, and all Israel with him, to Debir, and fought against it:
Joshua 10:3 Therefore Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem sent to Hoham king of Hebron, and to Piram king of Jarmuth, and to Japhia king of Lachish, and to Debir king of Eglon, saying,
Joshua 15:36 and Shaaraim, and Adithaim, and Gederah, and Gederothaim; fourteen cities with their villages.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Joshua 12:13 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

מֶ֤לֶךְ דְּבִר֙ אֶחָ֔ד מֶ֥לֶךְ גֶּ֖דֶר אֶחָֽד

the king of Debir, one; the king of Geder, one;

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Joshua 12:13 Septuagint · lemma form

βασιλεύς δαβιρ βασιλεύς γαδερ

the king of Dabir, the king of Gader:

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

On this verse, The Pulpit Commentary discusses the Septuagint’s reading. Read the note in Commentary ↓

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

מַלְכָּא דִדְבִיר חָד מַלְכָּא דְגֶדֶר חָד:

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Joshua 12:13 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Adam Clarke's Commentary

Verse 13. The king of Geder] Probably the same with Gedor, Jos 15:58; it was situated in the tribe of Judah.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

13. the king of Debir] See Jos_10:39.

the king of Geder] Somewhere in the lowland of Judah. Possibly the same place as the Gedor mentioned in 1Ch_4:39.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

The king of Debir, one,.... The same with Kirjathsepher, of which place; see Gill on Jos 10:38,

the king of Geder, one: Jerom (h) seems to confound this with the tower of Eder, beyond which Jacob pitched his tent, Gen 35:21; and he speaks of a Gaddera in the tribe of Judah, in his time a village belonging to the country about Aelia or Jerusalem, and of Gahedur in the tribe of Judah, a large village, ten miles from Diospolis or Lydda, as you go to Eleutheropolis: it seems to be the same with Gederah, Jos 15:36, or Gedor, Jos 15:58.

(h) De loc. Heb. fol. 92. A. B.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The Pulpit Commentary

The king of Geder. Perhaps the same as Gederah in Jos_15:36. If so, it is the Gedor of the Onomasticon, ten miles from Beit-Jibrin, or Eleutheropolis, now Jedireh. Conder, however, with whom Vandevelde seems to agree, places Geder in the mountain region, and identifies it with Gedor (Jos_15:58) and the modern Jedur, in the Hebron mountain. So Keil and Delitzsch, Robinson, and others. The Gedor 1Ch_4:39 may be the same place. It is described as on the east side of the "gai," or ravine, but no clearer indication of the place is given. It is, however, unlikely that the Simeonites would have found the children of tiara undisturbed in the mountains of Hebron in the reign of Hezekiah (see vers. 40, 41). The LXX reads Gerar, and this is very probably the true reading. There was a "Nahal," or winter torrent, there, (in Gen_26:17, Gen_26:19) and therefore possibly a "gal." The whole passage in 1 Chronicles should be consulted.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

Debir ... Geder ... Hormah ... Arad ... Libnah ... Adullam ... Makkedah

These are the names of cities. (See: How to Translate Names)

translationWords

king

Bethel

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Joshua, in the Historical, opens this verse with 6 words (4 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Geder (“Geder”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “Geder” (Geder) shape what this verse is saying?
1 word here appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. Why might the author reach for such rare wording?
This is the first place “Geder” appears in Scripture (first appears here). What does its debut here establish?
How does Joshua 10:3, which shares the word «Debir», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “king” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
Compare how Adam Clarke's Commentary and The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

1 word in this verse appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible.
1 word makes its first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
This verse counts 6 Hebrew ↔ 4 Greek words.
“king” occurs 2× in this single verse.
4 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 6 words in this verse.