When you go, you will come to an unsuspecting people, and the land is large; for God has given it into your hand, a place where there is no lack of anything that is in the earth.”
Parallel translations
- KJV When ye go, ye shall come unto a people secure, and to a large land: for God hath given it into your hands; a place where there is no want of any thing that is in the earth.
- BSB When you enter, you will come to an unsuspecting people and a spacious land, for God has delivered it into your hand. It is a place where nothing on earth is lacking.”
- NKJV When you go, you will come to a secure people and a large land. For God has given it into your hands, a place where there is no lack of anything that is on the earth.”
- NASB When you enter, you will come to an unsuspecting people with a spacious land; for God has handed it over to you, a place where there is no lack of anything that is on the earth.”
- NLT When you get there, you will find the people living carefree lives. God has given us a spacious and fertile land, lacking in nothing!”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The spies describe Laish as an unsuspecting, spacious, well-supplied land, claiming God has given it to them. They invoke God's name to justify their own scheme.
Overview
The phrase 'God has given it into your hand' borrows the language of holy war, but no divine command authorized this venture. The Danites assume God's blessing on a plan He never sanctioned. The verse warns against baptizing our ambitions with pious words while ignoring God's revealed will.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Judg 18:27They took that which Micah had made, and the priest whom he had, and came to Laish, to a people quiet and unsuspecting, and struck them with the edge of the sword; then they burned the city with fire.
- Judg 18:7Then the five men departed, and came to Laish, and saw the people who were there, how they lived in safety, in the way of the Sidonians, quiet and secure; for there was no one in the land, possessing authority, that might put them to shame in anything, and they were far from the Sidonians, and had no dealings with anyone else.
- 1 Tim 6:17Charge those who are rich in this present world that they not be haughty, nor have their hope set on the uncertainty of riches, but on the living God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy;
- Exod 3:8I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey; to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
- Deut 2:29as the children of Esau who dwell in Seir, and the Moabites who dwell in Ar, did to me; until I pass over the Jordan into the land which Yahweh our God gives us.”
- Josh 6:16At the seventh time, when the priests blew the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, “Shout, for Yahweh has given you the city!
- Deut 11:11–12but the land, where you go over to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys which drinks water from the rain of the sky,
- Ezek 20:6in that day I swore to them, to bring them out of the land of Egypt into a land that I had searched out for them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands.
- Deut 8:7–9For Yahweh your God brings you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of springs, and underground water flowing into valleys and hills;
- Deut 4:1Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and to the ordinances, which I teach you, to do them; that you may live, and go in and possess the land which Yahweh, the God of your fathers, gives you.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Israel's cycle of sin and rescue through flawed deliverers cries out for a Savior who never fails — the true and final Judge and Deliverer who saves his people not for a season but forever.
How Judges 18:10 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.