Judges - 11:23



23 So now Yahweh, the God of Israel, has dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and should you possess them?

Verse In-Depth

Explanation and meaning of Judges 11:23.

Differing Translations

Compare verses for better understanding.
So now the LORD God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and shouldest thou possess it?
So the Lord the God of Israel destroyed the Amorrhite, his people of Israel fighting against him, and wilt thou now possess this land?
So then the LORD, the God of Israel, dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel; and are you to take possession of them?
So now the LORD God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel, and shouldst thou possess it?
'And now, Jehovah, God of Israel, hath dispossessed the Amorite from the presence of His people Israel, and thou wouldest possess it!
So now the Lord, the God of Israel, has taken away their land from the Amorites and given it to his people Israel; are you then to have it?
So now the LORD, the God of Israel, has driven out the Amorites from before his people Israel, and should you possess them?
Therefore, it was the Lord, the God of Israel, who overthrew the Amorites, by means of his people Israel fighting against them. And now you wish to possess his land?

*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.


Historical Commentaries

Scholarly Analysis and Interpretation.

The Lord God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites - Jephthah shows that the Israelites did not take the land of the Moabites or Ammonites, but that of the Amorites, which they had conquered from Sihon their king, who had, without cause or provocation, attacked them; and although the Amorites had taken the lands in question from the Ammonites, yet the title by which Israel held them was good, because they took them not from the Ammonites, but conquered them from the Amorites. So now the Lord - hath dispossessed the Amorites. - The circumstances in which the Israelites were when they were attacked by the Amorites, plainly proved, that, unless Jehovah had helped them, they must have been overcome. God defeated the Amorites, and made a grant of their lands to the Israelites; and they had, in consequence, possessed them for three hundred years, Judges 11:26.

So now the Lord God of Israel hath dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel,.... It is his doing, and not the work of the Israelites; it is he that dispossessed the Amorites, and put the Israelites into the possession of their land, and therefore they enjoy it by a good tenure:
and shouldest thou possess it? what through the blessing of God on their arms they have obtained by conquest, and he has settled them in; did they conquer, that thou should possess what they conquered? did their God put it into their hands to deliver it into thine? did they fight to recover for thee what thou hadst lost, and to put thee into the possession of it? did not they fight in their own defence, and their enemies and their land fell into their hands, and by the laws and right of nations became theirs? and canst thou expect to possess it? what reason is there for it?

So the Lord - God, the sovereign Lord of all lands, hath given us this land; this he adds, as a farther and convincing reason; because otherwise it might have been alledged against the former argument, that they could gain no more right to that land from Sihon, than Sihon himself had.

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