Jos 7:18 | KD | STEP | Execution of the Command . - -18. Discovery of the guilty man through the lot. In we should expect “the tribe” ( shebet ) or “the families” ( mishpachoth ) of Judah, instead of “the family .” The plural mishpachoth is adopted in the lxx and Vulgate , and also to be met with in seven MSS; but this is a conjecture rather than the original reading Mishpachah is either used generally, or employed in a collective sense to denote all the families of Judah. There is no ground for altering לגּברים (man by man) into לבתּים (house by house) in , according to some of the MSS; the expression “man by man” is used simply because it was the representative men who came for the lot to be cast, not only in the case of the fathers’ houses, but in that of the families also.

‏ Joshua 7:18

Jos 7:16-18 Execution of the Command. - Jos 7:16-18. Discovery of the guilty man through the lot. In Jos 7:17 we should expect “the tribe” (shebet) or “the families” (mishpachoth) of Judah, instead of “the family.” The plural mishpachoth is adopted in the lxx and Vulgate, and also to be met with in seven MSS; but this is a conjecture rather than the original reading Mishpachah is either used generally, or employed in a collective sense to denote all the families of Judah. There is no ground for altering לגּברים (man by man) into לבתּים (house by house) in Jos 7:17, according to some of the MSS; the expression “man by man” is used simply because it was the representative men who came for the lot to be cast, not only in the case of the fathers’ houses, but in that of the families also.