Joshua 14:5

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

As Yahweh commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did; and they divided the land.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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Word by word

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וַֽיַּחְלְק֖וּ

châlaq

H2505

“and · to divide”

Conjunction + Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural

Appears 65× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 14:15

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 669

to divide, share, plunder, allot, apportion, assign - (Qal) - to divide, apportion - to assign, distribute - to assign, impart - to share - to divide up, plunder - (Niphal) - to divide oneself - to be divided - to assign, distribute - (Piel) - to divide, apportion - to assign, distribute - to scatter - (Pual) to be divided - (Hiphil) to receive a portion or part - (Hithpael) to divide among themselves - to be smooth, slippery, deceitful - (Qal) to be smooth, slippery - (Hiphil) - to be smooth - to flatter

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 →

12: words
11: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Grammatical profile

3 verbs
5 nouns
4 particles

Verb forms

צִוָּ֤ה Piel · Perfect
עָשׂ֖וּ Qal · Perfect
וַֽיַּחְלְק֖וּ Qal · Sequential Imperfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 15 words from the Hebrew and 16 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 12 Hebrew tokens and 15 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 14:5 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Joshua 21:2 and they spoke to them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan, saying, Yahweh commanded Moses to give us cities to dwell in, with the suburbs of it for our cattle.
Numbers 35:1–2 Yahweh spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, saying,

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 14:5 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

כַּאֲשֶׁ֨ר צִוָּ֤ה יְהוָה֙ אֶת מֹשֶׁ֔ה כֵּ֥ן עָשׂ֖וּ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל וַֽיַּחְלְק֖וּ אֶת הָאָֽרֶץ

As Yahweh commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did; and they divided the land.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Joshua 14:5 Septuagint · lemma form

ὅς τρόπος ἐντέλλομαι κύριος ὁ μωυσῆς οὕτως ποιέω ὁ υἱός ἰσραήλ καί μερίζω ὁ γῆ

As the Lord commanded Moses, so did the children of Israel; and they divided the land.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

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)

כְּמָא דְפַקֵד יְיָ יַת מֹשֶׁה כֵּן עֲבָדוּ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וּפַלִיגוּ יַת אַרְעָא:

(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 14:5 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 →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Jos 14:5 As the LORD commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did, and they divided the land.

Ver. 5. As the Lord commanded Moses.] To see that the Levites had their lands as well as other incomes, {Num 35:2} and that no man else should challenge any propriety in them. {Lev 25:32-34}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

They, i.e. the persons named Jos 14:5, who represented and acted in the name of the children of Israel, divided it, either now, or presently after; which is here spoken by anticipation.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown

the children of Israel . . . divided the land--that is, they made the preliminary arrangements for the work. A considerable time was requisite for the survey and measurement.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Adam Clarke's Commentary

Verse 5. They divided the land.] This work was begun some time before at Gilgal, and was finished some time after at Shiloh. It must have required a very considerable time to make all the geographical arrangements that were necessary for this purpose.

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

5. they divided the land] The division was not finished at once. See below, ch. Jos_18:1. But that is not the point here. The section contains the general introduction to the distribution of the land.

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

As the Lord commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did,.... Particularly with respect to the division of the land, and making provision for the Levites; this they did by their heads and representatives, the high priest and chief ruler, and the princes of the several tribes:

and they divided the land; met about it, and began to take measures in order to do it; they prepared for it, though as yet it was not actually done, and previous to it was the following incident.

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

Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

Land: or they were making all necessary preparations for the work, when Caleb came to remind Josue of what had been promised to him. No doubt land-measurers would be sent through the country.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

John Wesley's Explanatory Notes

They - That is, the persons named, ver. 5, who acted in the name of the children of Israel, divided it, either now, or presently after.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

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 12 words (11 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is châlaq (“to divide”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “to divide” (châlaq) contribute to the verse as a whole?
Joshua 21:2 shares this passage’s theme. How do the two illuminate each other?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
The verb «צִוָּ֤ה» is Piel Perfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Matthew Poole's English Annotations read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 12 Hebrew ↔ 15 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 6 words in this verse.
11 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 12 words in this verse.