Hebrew word · H7850

שֹׁטֵט

uleshotet

scourge

Found only here. It is usually connected with shot, 'whip, lash' (1 Kgs 12:11; Prov 26:3; Nah 3:2), and many scholars think the text originally read shot. The meaning 'whip' or 'lash' is not in serious doubt.

Appears once in the Hebrew Old Testament. ·

What it means

scourge

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Joshua 23:13

Range of meaning

Found only here. It is usually connected with shot, 'whip, lash' (1 Kgs 12:11; Prov 26:3; Nah 3:2), and many scholars think the text originally read shot. The meaning 'whip' or 'lash' is not in serious doubt.

Against the English

KJV, BSB and WEB have 'scourge(s)'. Most modern versions have 'whip(s)'. Today 'scourge' usually means a widespread affliction ('the scourge of poverty'), which blurs the concrete picture of a lash cutting into the flanks.

How it drifted

In older English 'scourge' meant a whip, and to scourge was to flog. The figurative sense ('a cause of great suffering') has largely replaced it in modern use.

Used elsewhere in the period

Compare Num 33:55, the source of this warning: those you leave 'will be barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides'. Joshua changes the pairing to a whip in the sides and thorns in the eyes. Judg 2:3 has 'they will be [thorns?] in your sides', where the Hebrew is probably shortened and is often filled in from these parallels.

Where it appears

Joshua · 1

  1. Joshua 23:13 וּלְשֹׁטֵ֤ט and <into> a scourge

    know for sure that the LORD your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. Instead, they will become for you a snare and a trap, a scourge in your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from this good land that the LORD your God has given you.

    Here: A word found only here, almost certainly meaning 'whip' or 'lash'. It pictures repeated blows on the body.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.