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.”
Parallel translations
- WEB 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.”
- 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.
- 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 18:27After they had taken Micah’s idols and his priest, they went to Laish, to a tranquil and unsuspecting people, and they struck them with their swords and burned down the city.
- Judg 18:7So the five men departed and came to Laish, where they saw that the people were living securely, like the Sidonians, tranquil and unsuspecting. There was nothing lacking in the land and no oppressive ruler. And they were far away from the Sidonians and had no alliance with anyone.
- 1 Tim 6:17Instruct those who are rich in the present age not to be conceited and not to put their hope in the uncertainty of wealth, but in God, who richly provides all things for us to enjoy.
- Exod 3:8I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.
- Deut 2:29just as the descendants of Esau who live in Seir and the Moabites who live in Ar did for us, until we cross the Jordan into the land that the LORD our God is giving us.”
- Josh 6:16After the seventh time around, the priests blew the horns, and Joshua commanded the people, “Shout! For the LORD has given you the city!
- Deut 11:11–12But the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks in the rain from heaven.
- Ezek 20:6On that day I swore to bring them out of the land of Egypt into a land that I had searched out for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the glory of all lands.
- Deut 8:7–9For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks and fountains and springs that flow through the valleys and hills;
- Deut 4:1Hear now, O Israel, the statutes and ordinances I am teaching you to follow, so that you may live and may enter and take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you.
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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.