Joshua 22:15

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex) Joshua 22:15 appears in the Hebrew Old Testament. The text above is from the Westminster Leningrad Codex. Each word links to its Strong’s number, a concise gloss, and parsing drawn from the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible morphology. Click any word for its full Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB) entry.
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Joshua 22:15 (World English Bible). Public Domain. Lemma interlinear Bible study tool, https://lemma.gebible.app/v/joshua/22/15.

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English Translation
They came to the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the half-tribe of Manasseh, to the land of Gilead, and they spoke with them, saying,
World English Bible · Public Domain
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Compare translations 3

The same verse in 3 English versions, stacked beneath the original-language interlinear above. Click any original word for its lexicon entry.

Each is an independent rendering of the whole verse — the interlinear is not word-aligned to these translations.

Highlighted words mark where these versions differ — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment.

  • World English Bible Public Domain
    They came to the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the half-tribe of Manasseh, to the land of Gilead, and they spoke with them, saying,
  • King James Version Public Domain
    And they came unto the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the half tribe of Manasseh, unto the land of Gilead, and they spake with them, saying,
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
    And they came into the land of Gilead to the sons of Reuben and to the sons of Gad and to half of the tribe of Manasseh, and they spoke with them, saying,

unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult).

Versions to compare (up to 4)

3 of 4 selected

Show all 18 translations

Every available English version of this verse, each an independent rendering of the whole verse.

  • World English Bible Public Domain
    They came to the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the half-tribe of Manasseh, to the land of Gilead, and they spoke with them, saying,
  • Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
    They went to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh in the land of Gilead and said to them,
  • Majority Standard Bible Public Domain
    They went to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh in the land of Gilead and said to them,
  • King James Version Public Domain
    And they came unto the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the half tribe of Manasseh, unto the land of Gilead, and they spake with them, saying,
  • American Standard Version (1901) Public Domain
    And they came unto the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the half-tribe of Manasseh, unto the land of Gilead, and they spake with them, saying,
  • Revised Version (1885) Public Domain
    And they came unto the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the half tribe of Manasseh, unto the land of Gilead, and they spake with them, saying,
  • Geneva Bible (1599) Public Domain
    So they went vnto the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the halfe tribe of Manasseh, vnto the land of Gilead, and spake with them, saying,
  • Douay-Rheims (1899) Public Domain
    Who came to the children of Ruben, and of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasses, into the land of Galaad, and said to them:
  • Young's Literal Translation Public Domain
    And they come in unto the sons of Reuben, and unto the sons of Gad, and unto the half of the tribe of Manasseh, unto the land of Gilead, and speak with them, saying,
  • Literal Standard Version CC BY-SA 4.0
    And they come to the sons of Reuben, and to the sons of Gad, and to the half-tribe of Manasseh, to the land of Gilead, and speak with them, saying,
  • Unlocked Literal Bible CC BY-SA 4.0
    They came to the people of Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh, in the land of Gilead, and they spoke to them:
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
    And they came into the land of Gilead to the sons of Reuben and to the sons of Gad and to half of the tribe of Manasseh, and they spoke with them, saying,
  • Darby Bible Public Domain
    And they came to the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the half tribe of Manasseh, to the land of Gilead, and spoke with them, saying,
  • World Messianic Bible Public Domain
    They came to the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the half-tribe of Manasseh, to the land of Gilead, and they spoke with them, saying,
  • Webster's Bible Public Domain
    And they came to the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the half-tribe of Manasseh, to the land of Gilead, and they spoke with them, saying,
  • Free Bible Version CC BY-SA 4.0
    After they arrived they told the tribes of Reuben and Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh,
  • Bible in Basic English Public Domain
    And they came to the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh, to the land of Gilead, and said to them,
  • JPS Tanakh (1917) Public Domain
    And they came unto the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the half-tribe of Manasseh, unto the land of Gilead, and they spoke with them, saying:

Literal Standard Version (2020), Covenant Press — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). Unlocked Literal Bible (unfoldingWord) — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult). Free Bible Version, Dr. Jonathan Gallagher — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org).

Word by word

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רְאוּבֵ֧ן
Rᵉʼûwbên
H7205
“Reuben”
Noun, Proper
Part of Speech
Noun
Type
Proper
Full BDB Definition

Origin: from the imperative of H7200 and H1121

TWOT: None

Reuben = "behold a son" - the eldest son of Jacob by Leah - the tribe descended from Reuben - the territory inhabited by the tribe of Reuben
  1. וַיָּבֹ֜אוּ bôwʼ H935 “and · to enter” Conjunction + Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural
  2. אֶל ʼêl H413 “to” Preposition
  3. בְּנֵי bên H1121 “sons of” Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct
  4. וְאֶל ʼêl H413 “and · to” Conjunction + Preposition
  5. בְּנֵי bên H1121 “sons of” Noun, Common, Masculine, Plural, Construct
  6. גָ֛ד Gâd H1410 “Gad” Noun, Proper
  7. וְאֶל ʼêl H413 “and · to” Conjunction + Preposition
  8. חֲצִ֥י chêtsîy H2677 “half of” Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct
  9. שֵֽׁבֶט shêbeṭ H7626 “staff of” Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Construct
  10. מְנַשֶּׁ֖ה Mᵉnashsheh H4519 “Manasseh” Noun, Proper
  11. אֶל ʼêl H413 “to” Preposition
  12. אֶ֣רֶץ ʼerets H776 “land of” Noun, Common, Both, Singular, Construct
  13. הַגִּלְעָ֑ד Gilʻâd H1568 “the · Gilead” Particle, Definite Article + Noun, Proper
  14. וַיְדַבְּר֥וּ dâbar H1696 “and · to speak” Conjunction + Verb, Piel, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural
  15. אִתָּ֖ם ʼêth H854 “with · them” Preposition + Suffix, Personal, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural
  16. לֵאמֹֽר ʼâmar H559 “to say” Preposition + Verb, Qal, Infinitive Construct

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 →

17
words
13
distinct lemmas
Historical
section

Grammatical profile

  • 3 verbs
  • 9 nouns
  • 5 prepositions

Verb forms

  • וַיָּבֹ֜אוּ Qal · Sequential Imperfect
  • וַיְדַבְּר֥וּ Piel · Sequential Imperfect
  • לֵאמֹֽר Qal · Infinitive Construct

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

  • בְּנֵי son H1121 ×2
  • אֶל to H413 ×4

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 30 words from the Hebrew and 32 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 17 Hebrew tokens and 25 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

29

Topical passages linked to Joshua 22:15 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

  • Exodus 32:8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it, and have sacrificed to it, and said, 'These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.'"
  • Leviticus 5:19 It is a trespass offering. He is certainly guilty before Yahweh."
  • Leviticus 17:8–9 "You shall say to them, 'Any man there is of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who live as foreigners among them, who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice,
  • Leviticus 26:40 "'If they confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against me, and also that, because they walked contrary to me,
  • Numbers 5:6 "Speak to the children of Israel: When a man or woman commits any sin that men commit, so as to trespass against Yahweh, and that soul is guilty;
  • Numbers 14:43 For there the Amalekite and the Canaanite are before you, and you shall fall by the sword: because you are turned back from following Yahweh, therefore Yahweh will not be with you.
  • Numbers 32:15 For if you turn away from after him, he will yet again leave them in the wilderness; and you will destroy all this people.
  • Deuteronomy 7:4 For he will turn away your son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of Yahweh be kindled against you, and he will destroy you quickly.
  • Deuteronomy 12:4–6 You shall not do so to Yahweh your God.
  • Deuteronomy 12:13–14 Take heed to yourself that you don't offer your burnt offerings in every place that you see;
  • Deuteronomy 30:17 But if your heart turn away, and you will not hear, but shall be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them;
  • Joshua 22:12 When the children of Israel heard of it, the whole congregation of the children of Israel gathered themselves together at Shiloh, to go up against them to war.
  • Joshua 22:18 that you must turn away this day from following Yahweh? and it will be, seeing you rebel today against Yahweh, that tomorrow he will be angry with the whole congregation of Israel.
  • 1 Samuel 15:23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim. Because you have rejected the word of Yahweh, he has also rejected you from being king.
  • 1 Chronicles 21:3 Joab said, Yahweh make his people a hundred times as many as they are: but, my lord the king, aren't they all my lord's servants? why does my lord require this thing? why will he be a cause of guilt to Israel?
  • 2 Chronicles 10:19 So Israel rebelled against the house of David to this day.
  • 2 Chronicles 25:27 Now from the time that Amaziah did turn away from following Yahweh they made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem; and he fled to Lachish: but they sent after him to Lachish, and killed him there.
  • 2 Chronicles 26:18 and they withstood Uzziah the king, and said to him, It pertains not to you, Uzziah, to burn incense to Yahweh, but to the priests the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense: go out of the sanctuary; for you have trespassed; neither shall it be for your honor from Yahweh God.
  • 2 Chronicles 28:13 and said to them, You shall not bring in the captives here: for you purpose that which will bring on us a trespass against Yahweh, to add to our sins and to our trespass; for our trespass is great, and there is fierce wrath against Israel.
  • Ezra 9:2 For they have taken of their daughters for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy seed have mixed themselves with the peoples of the lands: yes, the hand of the princes and rulers has been chief in this trespass.
  • Ezra 9:15 Yahweh, the God of Israel, you are righteous; for we are left a remnant that is escaped, as it is this day: behold, we are before you in our guiltiness; for none can stand before you because of this.
  • Psalms 78:8 And might not be as their fathers, A stubborn and rebellious generation, A generation that didn't make their hearts loyal, Whose spirit was not steadfast with God.
  • Isaiah 63:10 But they rebelled, and grieved his holy Spirit: therefore he was turned to be their enemy, [and] himself fought against them.
  • Matthew 6:14–15 "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
  • Matthew 18:17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the assembly. If he refuses to hear the assembly also, let him be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector.
  • 1 Corinthians 1:10 Now I beg you, brothers, through the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfected together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
  • 1 Corinthians 5:4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, you being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
  • Galatians 1:1–2 Paul, an apostle (not from men, neither through man, but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead),
  • Hebrews 12:25 See that you don't refuse him who speaks. For if they didn't escape when they refused him who warned on the Earth, how much more will we not escape who turn away from him who warns from heaven,

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 22:15 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיָּבֹ֜אוּ אֶל בְּנֵי רְאוּבֵ֧ן וְאֶל בְּנֵי גָ֛ד וְאֶל חֲצִ֥י שֵֽׁבֶט מְנַשֶּׁ֖ה אֶל אֶ֣רֶץ הַגִּלְעָ֑ד וַיְדַבְּר֥וּ אִתָּ֖ם לֵאמֹֽר

They came to the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the half-tribe of Manasseh, to the land of Gilead, and they spoke with them, saying,

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Joshua 22:15 Septuagint · lemma form

καί παραγίγνομαι πρός ὁ υἱός γαδ καί πρός ὁ υἱός ρουβην καί πρός ὁ ἥμισυς φυλή μανασσή εἰς γῆ γαλαάδ καί λαλέω πρός αὐτός λέγω

And they came to the sons of Ruben, and to the sons of Gad, and to the half tribe of Manasse into the land of Galaad; and they spoke to them, saying,

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)

1

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.

  1. Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)
    וַאֲתוֹ לְוַת בְּנֵי רְאוּבֵן וּלְוַת בְּנֵי גָד וּלְוַת פַּלְגוּת שִׁבְטָא דִמְנַשֶׁה לְאַרְעָא דְגִלְעָד וּמַלִילוּ עִמְהוֹן לְמֵימָר:

    (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 22:15 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 22:15 And they came unto the children of Reuben, and to the children of Gad, and to the half tribe of Manasseh, unto the land of Gilead, and they spake with them, saying,

Ver. 15. And they spake with them, saying.] Cuncta prius tentanda … Omne bellum sumitur facile: caeterum agerrime desinit, saith Sallust. {a} Therefore Philip of Macedon wrought more by treaties than by arms, as Polyaenus {b} observeth, and held it the far better way.

{a} Sal., in Jugur.

{b} ουκ ελαττω δι ομιλιας η δια μαχης κατειργαζετο. - Polyaen. Strat., lib. iv.

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.

Tyndale Open Study Notes

Tyndale Open Resources

22:15-20 The direct and hard-hitting statements and questions of the delegation made sure that God’s wrath would not come upon the nation because of rebellion like Achan’s (7:1-15) or the episode at Peor (Num 25).

22:15 The delegation crossed the Jordan River to meet the leaders of the eastern tribes in the land of Gilead, probably in southern Gad.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

John Gill's Exposition

Thus saith the whole congregation of the Lord,.... By whom they were sent, and whom they represented; and they do not call them the congregation of Israel, but of the Lord, because it was not on a civil but religious account they were come, and not to plead their own cause, but the cause of God; and not so much to show a concern for their own honour and interest as for the glory of God:

what trespass is this that ye have committed against the God of Israel; they took it for granted that they had committed a sin, and that so great, they were not able to express the greatness of it in all its aggravated circumstances, and plainly suggest it was idolatry; which was too premature, when as yet they had not inquired into it; but their zeal for God, and his honour, hurried them into this hasty step:

to turn away this day from following the Lord; they intimate, that they had begun a revolt from the worship of God, which is aggravated by their falling into it so soon, having received so many favours from God, and had so lately seen such wonderful appearances of his power and goodness, and had just had such excellent instructions, exhortations, and cautions given them by Joshua, when he dismissed them:

in that ye have built you an altar; which they supposed was to offer sacrifices upon; whereas there was to be but one altar, and that in the place which the Lord should choose to put his name in, and which he had now chosen, where all sacrifices were to be brought and offered up; see Exo 20:24,

that ye might rebel this day against the Lord? against the commandment of the Lord expressed in the places referred to, which they charge with rebellion against himself, a very high and heavy charge indeed! but they should first have inquired whether they were guilty of the trespass, or with what view they had built the altar, whether for sacrifice, or for some other use; but they took it for granted it was for sacrifice.

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

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

The whole assembly of Yahweh says this

All the people of Israel are spoken of together in the singular as if they were one person. AT: "All the other Israelites are asking"

translationWords

Yahweh

faithful

rebel

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 17 words (13 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Rᵉʼûwbên (“Reuben”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

  1. The word Rᵉʼûwbên carries the sense “Reuben.” How does it shape the verse?
  2. Exodus 32:8 shares this passage’s theme. How do the two illuminate each other?
  3. “son” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
  4. These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
  5. The verb «וַיָּבֹ֜אוּ» is Qal Sequential Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
  6. Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Tyndale Open Study Notes read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

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