Core Glossary
Core Glossary — Joshua — English → French
How to Use This Glossary
- [TM-REUSE]: term and French rendering already fixed in the baseline
translation_memory.json; reuse the recorded rendering exactly, do not re-derive. - [NEW]: Joshua-specific term not present in the baseline; risk tier and rendering proposed here for addition to translation memory before Phase 2.
- Risk tiers follow the baseline
doctrine_risk_registry.jsondefinitions exactly (Critical / High / Medium / Low).
Glossary Table
| Term (English) | Status | Hebrew (translit.) | LXX Greek (translit.) | French rendering | Risk | Doctrine | Chapters | Risk rationale |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| God | [TM-REUSE] | Elohim | theos | Dieu | Medium | All | 1–24 (passim) | Baseline note on secularization/deist flattening applies unchanged. |
| the LORD (YHWH) | [TM-REUSE, extended] | YHWH | Kyrios | Seigneur (small caps “SEIGNEUR” in Scripture citations) | High | God’s Faithfulness; all doctrines | 1–24 (passim) | Baseline fixes Seigneur for κύριος/Christ’s Lordship (Rom 10:9). Reusing it for the Tetragrammaton is doctrinally sound (identifies YHWH with the Lord Jesus) but risks obscuring that a proper name, not a generic title, is present. Use small-caps convention per TOB/BJ practice to visually flag the Tetragrammaton. |
| covenant / treaty | [TM-REUSE] | berit | diathēkē | alliance | High | Covenant Renewal at Shechem; God’s Faithfulness | 3, 7, 9, 23, 24 | Baseline note applies; additionally distinguish the theological covenant (God-Israel) from the political treaty sense (Gibeonites, ch.9) via context, not a different French word. |
| holy / holy ground | [TM-REUSE] | qadosh | hagios | saint | Medium | Sanctification-adjacent; Holy War | 5 | Baseline note applies unchanged (set-apart + morally pure sense). |
| sanctify / consecrate | [TM-REUSE, note variant] | qadash / hitqaddesh | hagiazō / hagnizō | sanctifier (note: LXX 3:5 uses ἁγνίζω, “purify,” not ἁγιάζω) | Medium | Covenant Renewal; Rest | 3, 5 | Flag the Greek root variance for native-speaker review; “purifiez-vous” may be more precise in Josh 3:5 specifically. |
| law / Book of the Law | [TM-REUSE] | torah | nomos | loi (“la Loi” capitalized for Mosaic Torah) | High | Obedience and the Conquest | 1, 8, 23, 24 | Baseline note applies: keep referent narrowly Mosaic, not natural-law/cosmic order. |
| sin / trespass / unfaithfulness | [TM-REUSE + NEW nuance] | chata / ma’al | hamartia / parabainō | péché (general) / infidélité (envers l’alliance) (ma’al specifically) | Medium | Holy War and Divine Judgment; Obedience | 7, 22 | Baseline péché colloquial-trivialization risk applies; additionally, ma’al specifically denotes covenant-breach of trust and should not be flattened into generic “péché” without the covenant-breach nuance in context. |
| Israel | [TM-REUSE] | Yisra’el | Israēl | Israël | Medium | Unity/land promise | 1–24 (passim) | Baseline note on contemporary political conflation applies; keep referent covenantal/historical. |
| fear (the LORD) | [NEW] | yare’ | phobeomai | craindre (l’Éternel/le Seigneur) | Medium | Covenant Renewal at Shechem | 2, 4, 24 | Distinguish reverent covenant fear (24:14) from visceral dread/terror (2:9, “melt in fear”) — same French root risks conflating two distinct registers; gloss required. |
| serve / worship | [NEW] | avad | latreuō | servir | High | Covenant Renewal at Shechem | 22, 24 | Core passage’s structuring verb (8x in ch.24); French servir risks a menial-task reading rather than total covenantal allegiance/worship; reinforce with context every occurrence. Propose for TM addition given centrality to core passage. |
| choose | [NEW] | bachar | haireomai | choisir | High | Covenant Renewal at Shechem | 24 | Secular French “choisissez votre vérité” consumer-choice framing risks flattening Joshua’s binary, no-third-option confrontation; note the directional difference from baseline’s High-risk “élection” (God choosing) — here humans choose, but the same French word-family collision risk (competitive/relativized choice) applies in reverse. |
| strong and courageous | [NEW] | chazaq ve’ematz | ischyō / andrizomai | fort et courageux | Medium | Courage through God’s Presence | 1, 10 | Risk of secular self-help/motivational-poster reading unless tied every occurrence to the grounding clause “car le Seigneur ton Dieu est avec toi.” |
| meditate | [NEW] | hagah | meletaō | méditer | Low-Medium | Obedience and the Conquest | 1 | Contemporary French méditer trends toward silent mindfulness practice; gloss as vocalized rumination/recitation. |
| harlot / prostitute | [NEW] | zonah | pornē | prostituée | Medium | Rahab and the Inclusion of the Nations | 2 | Deliberately unsoftened in source text (and in Heb 11:31/Jas 2:25); avoid euphemistic French renderings that erase the moral candor doctrinally significant to the grace-to-outsiders theme. |
| kindness / covenant loyalty | [NEW] | chesed | eleos | bonté fidèle (compound gloss) | High | Rahab and the Inclusion of the Nations | 2 | No single French word captures full range (loyal covenant-love); bonté alone too weak, miséricorde over-imports NT devotional resonance. Flag every occurrence for theologian review. |
| Ark of the Covenant | [NEW] | aron habberit | kibōtos tēs diathēkēs | arche de l’alliance | Medium | God’s Faithfulness | 3, 4, 6 | [TM-REUSE for “alliance” component]. Footnote on first use to preempt confusion with “l’arche de Noé” for biblically unchurched readers, though context normally disambiguates. |
| circumcision | [NEW] | mulot | peritomē | circoncision | Medium | Covenant Renewal (preparatory) | 5 | Standard term; untranslatable Gilgal wordplay (rolling away reproach) requires a footnote rather than an attempted French pun. |
| commander of the army of the LORD | [NEW] | sar-tzeva-YHWH | archistratēgos dynameōs Kyriou | le chef de l’armée du Seigneur | High | Courage through God’s Presence; Holy War | 5 | Possible christophany; render literally without resolving the interpretive question in-text. Any curriculum claim identifying this figure as Christ must be flagged as traditional interpretation, not asserted exegesis — mandatory theologian review. |
| devoted to destruction / the ban | [NEW] | cherem | anathema | voué(s) à l’extermination (avoid bare “anathème” or “guerre sainte”) | Critical | Holy War and Divine Judgment | 6, 7, 8, 10, 11 | HIGHEST-RISK TERM IN THE BOOK. “Anathème” collides with Catholic ecclesiastical-excommunication usage; “guerre sainte” collides with contemporary French media/political associations with jihadist terrorism. Mandatory theologian review at every occurrence with a standing footnote clarifying the unique, temporally bounded, divinely commanded, non-repeatable nature of this judgment. |
| burnt offering | [NEW] | olah | holokautōsis | offrande consumée (par le feu) — use “holocauste” ONLY with disambiguating footnote | Critical | Holy War and Divine Judgment (adjacent); Covenant Renewal | 8 | The traditional French rendering “holocauste” now collides catastrophically with “l’Holocauste” (the Shoah). Mandatory theologian review every occurrence; never use bare “holocauste” without an explicit clarifying footnote distinguishing the sacrificial-offering sense from the genocide referent. |
| peace offering / fellowship offering | [NEW] | shelamim | thysia sōtēriou | sacrifice de communion / sacrifice de paix | Medium | Covenant Renewal | 8 | Note potential confusion with [TM-REUSE] communion fraternelle (fellowship) baseline term — this is a specific sacrificial category, not general Christian fellowship; keep contextually distinct. |
| oath | [NEW] | shevu’ah | horkos | serment | Medium | God’s Faithfulness to the Land Promise | 1, 9, 21 | Distinguish from casual “promesse”; retain sacral, binding, irrevocable weight, especially where it underlies the fulfillment claim of 21:43-45. |
| the LORD fought for Israel | [NEW] | YHWH nilcham | Kyrios epolemei | le Seigneur combattait pour Israël | Medium | Obedience and the Conquest | 10 | Reinforce non-triumphalist framing: victory credited to God, not Israelite military prowess; pair with the doctrine note every occurrence. |
| hardened their hearts | [NEW] | chizzeq et libbam | katischysen tēn kardian | endurcit leur cœur | High | Holy War and Divine Judgment | 11 | Predestination-adjacent language; flag alongside baseline’s High-risk election entry given France’s Jansenist-controversy background on grace/hardening; requires theologian review. |
| possess / dispossess | [NEW] | yarash | kateklēronomēsan | posséder / déposséder | Medium-High | God’s Faithfulness to the Land Promise | 1, 12–19 | Foreshadows nachalah (inheritance); flag the conceptual link across the two different French verb-families (posséder vs. hériter) so the gift/promise unity is not lost. |
| inheritance / portion | [NEW] | nachalah | klēronomia | héritage | High | God’s Faithfulness to the Land Promise | 13–21 | Secular French héritage trends toward inert legal/financial inheritance; this is also the lexical ancestor of NT salvation-inheritance vocabulary (Eph 1:14 etc.) — flag for theologian review to ensure covenant-promise framing and cross-curriculum consistency. |
| lot (casting lots) | [NEW] | goral | klēros | sort (with clarifying gloss) | Medium | God’s Faithfulness to the Land Promise | 13–19 | French sort strongly connotes chance/gambling (“tirer au sort”), risking a fatalistic misreading of what the text presents as divinely-guided allocation; gloss required on first occurrence. |
| cities of refuge | [NEW] | arei hammiqlat | poleis phygadeutēria | villes de refuge | Medium | (typological, teaching-note only) | 20 | Standard, clear rendering; any Christ-typology connection must be flagged as traditional application, not the Hebrew text’s own claim. |
| avenger of blood | [NEW] | go’el haddam | ho anchisteuōn to haima | le vengeur du sang | High | (contrast case for redemption theology) | 20 | Must NOT be rendered with any “rédempteur” (redeemer) vocabulary despite the shared go’el root with Ruth/Job’s redemption theology — this is a judicial blood-vengeance role, not salvation. Flag for theologian review to prevent cross-curriculum confusion. |
| manslayer (unintentional) | [NEW] | rotseach bishgagah | phoneutēs akousiōs | meurtrier involontaire | Low | (legal/justice) | 20 | Standard French legal vocabulary; low doctrinal risk. |
| rest | [NEW] | nuach / menuchah | katapausis | repos | High | Rest in the Promised Land as a Type of Salvation Rest | 1, 11, 21, 22, 23 | Everyday, low-weight French word (napping, time off) does not automatically carry covenantal-eschatological freight; flag for theologian review to ensure teaching material connects it to the Heb 3-4 canonical trajectory without over-reading NT typology back into Joshua’s own historical claim. |
| not one word failed | [NEW] | lo nafal davar | ou diepesen rhēma | pas une seule de toutes les bonnes paroles ne resta sans effet | Medium | God’s Faithfulness to the Land Promise | 21 | Preserve totalizing language (“toutes,” “aucune”) without qualification, per the baseline’s rule against softening universality claims. |
| altar of witness | [NEW] | mizbeach (ed) | bōmos (martyrion) | autel de témoignage / autel-témoin | Medium | Covenant Renewal (unity concern) | 22 | Must be clearly distinguished from the sacrificial “autel” (ch.8) — the whole chapter’s resolution depends on this altar being memorial-only, never intended for sacrifice. |
| rebellion / unfaithfulness | [NEW] | mered / ma’al | apostasia / asebeia | rébellion / infidélité | Medium | Holy War and Divine Judgment (echo) | 22 | Reuses ch.7 ma’al term-family; no new risk beyond what is flagged there. |
| cling to the LORD | [NEW] | davaq ba-YHWH | proskollaomai | s’attacher au Seigneur | Medium | Covenant Renewal at Shechem | 23 | Marital-bond resonance (Gen 2:24) not lexically recoverable in French; flag as a valuable cross-reference for teaching notes. |
| love the LORD | [NEW] | ahavah et YHWH | agapan Kyrion | aimer le Seigneur | Low-Medium | Covenant Renewal at Shechem | 23 | Ensure obedience is tied to love (not sentimental only), per 23:6. |
| stone as witness | [NEW] | even le’edah | lithos eis martyrion | pierre de témoignage | Medium | Covenant Renewal at Shechem | 24 | Genre note: ANE suzerain-vassal treaty form (historical prologue + stipulation + witness) helps low-OT-literacy readers understand the chapter’s structure. |
| historical recital (“I took your father Abraham”) | [NEW] | va’eqach et avraham | elabon ton patera Abraam | j’ai pris votre père Abraham | Medium | Covenant Renewal at Shechem; grace precedes demand | 24 | Structural flag: v.15’s “choisissez” must never be taught apart from vv.2-13’s prior grace-narrative — obedience follows grace, echoing baseline’s “obedience of faith” ordering principle from Romans. |
| Amorites | [NEW] | Emori | Amorraioi | Amorréens | Low | (background/context) | 3, 5, 9, 10, 11, 24 | Standard proper-name form; functions as synecdoche for Canaanite peoples generally — teaching note recommended. |
| Rahab (proper name) | [NEW] | Rachav | Rhaab | Rahab | Low | Rahab and the Inclusion of the Nations | 2, 6 | Standard transliteration; no rendering risk. |
| Jericho / Ai / Shechem (place names) | [NEW] | Yericho / Ai / Shekhem | Ierichō / Gai / Sychem | Jéricho / Aï / Sichem | Low | (narrative geography) | 2–8, 24 | Standard established French Bible proper-name forms (Segond/TOB aligned); no rendering risk. |
| scarlet cord | [NEW] | tiqvat chut hashani | spartion kokkinon | cordon écarlate | Low-Medium | Rahab and the Inclusion of the Nations | 2 | The tiqvah/“hope” wordplay is devotional tradition, not lexical meaning; label as such if referenced in teaching notes. |
| foreign gods | [NEW] | elohei nekar | theoi allotrioi | dieux étrangers | Low | Covenant Renewal at Shechem | 24 | Do not capitalize; reserve capital “Dieu” for [TM-REUSE] the true God only. |
| house (household) | [NEW] | bayit | oikos | maison / maisonnée | Medium | Covenant Renewal at Shechem | 24 | ”Moi et ma maison” (traditional idiom) preferred over bare architectural “maison”; gloss as ”= moi et toute ma famille.” |
Risk Summary (Joshua-specific additions)
| Risk tier | Count (new Joshua terms) | Review routing |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | 2 (cherem, olah/burnt offering) | Human theologian — mandatory, every occurrence |
| High | 9 (Seigneur/YHWH, alliance-carryover, serve, choose, chesed, commander of the LORD’s army, hardened hearts, inheritance/nachalah, avenger of blood, rest) | Human theologian |
| Medium | 20 | Native speaker review |
| Low | 8 | Automated review |
This glossary extends, and must be merged into, the baseline translation_memory.json prior to Phase 2 Step 16 processing of Joshua curriculum segments. All [TM-REUSE] entries are enforced exactly as recorded in the baseline; all [NEW] entries require formal addition to translation memory (with version increment) before any Joshua segment translation begins, per the Phase 1 pipeline mandate.
Critical Risk Terms
Cherem Devoted To Destruction
Approved rendering: voué(s) à l’extermination
Transliteration: cherem / anathema
Doctrine: Holy War and Divine Judgment
Rejected alternatives: anathème (collides with Catholic ecclesiastical excommunication), guerre sainte (collides with French media/political jihadist-terrorism vocabulary)
Original: Hebrew: חֵרֶם (cherem) / LXX Greek: ἀνάθεμα (anathema)
Category: Judgment
NEW — HIGHEST-RISK TERM IN THE BOOK. That which is irrevocably set apart/devoted to God, either for destruction or for the sanctuary treasury, tied to judicial judgment on entrenched Canaanite wickedness. Two French-specific collisions converge at Critical severity. Mandatory theologian-reviewed footnote at EVERY occurrence (chs. 6, 7, 8, 10, 11) clarifying this is a unique, temporally bounded, divinely commanded judicial act, never a repeatable model for religious violence.
Burnt Offering Olah
Approved rendering: offrande consumée (par le feu)
Transliteration: olah / holokautōsis
Doctrine: Holy War and Divine Judgment
Rejected alternatives: holocauste (bare — collides catastrophically with ‘l’Holocauste’, the Shoah)
Original: Hebrew: עֹלָה (olah) / LXX Greek: ὁλοκαύτωσις (holokautōsis)
Category: Judgment
NEW — CRITICAL. A sacrificial offering wholly consumed by fire on the altar (8:30-31). The traditional Segond 1910 rendering ‘holocauste’ now collides catastrophically with the fixed French designation for the Shoah. Mandatory theologian review every occurrence (ch. 8); permit ‘holocauste’ only paired with an explicit disambiguating footnote, never as a silent default.
High Risk Terms
Lord
Approved rendering: Seigneur
Transliteration: Seigneur
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: maître, patron
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] Romans 10:9 ‘Jésus est Seigneur.’ ‘Seigneur’ carries feudal-historical resonance in French (‘le seigneur du château’), risking a distant, archaic-title reading rather than a living confession of exclusive Lordship. Joshua extension: this same French word is reused throughout Joshua for the Tetragrammaton (YHWH) — see new entry ‘lord_yhwh’ below — which is doctrinally coherent (identifies the LORD of the conquest with the Lord Jesus of Romans 10:9) but must not be confused with this entry’s narrower christological referent without context.
Lord Yhwh
Approved rendering: Seigneur (small-caps “SEIGNEUR” in direct Scripture citation)
Transliteration: YHWH / Kyrios
Doctrine: God’s Faithfulness to the Land Promise
Rejected alternatives: l’Éternel (Segond precedent — rejected for cross-curriculum consistency), Yahvé (not used in mainstream French Bible main text)
Original: Hebrew: יְהוָה (YHWH) / LXX Greek: Κύριος (Kyrios)
Category: God
NEW. Renders the covenant personal name YHWH, which the LXX and NT render Κύριος. Reusing the baseline’s fixed ‘Seigneur’ for the Tetragrammaton is doctrinally sound but risks readers missing that a proper Name, not a generic honorific, stands behind the word, since ‘seigneur’ also carries ordinary feudal usage in French. Use small-capital ‘SEIGNEUR’ in Scripture citation format (TOB/BJ convention) to visually flag the Tetragrammaton. Deliberate divergence from Segond 1910’s ‘l’Éternel’ — flagged for mandatory human theologian sign-off per analysis/06_linguistic_gap_analysis.md §5. Occurs passim, chs. 1-24.
Law
Approved rendering: loi
Transliteration: loi (la Loi)
Doctrine: Fulfillment of Prophecy
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] Capitalize as ‘la Loi’ for Torah/Mosaic law to distinguish from civil ‘loi’. Catholic natural-law theology (loi naturelle, Thomistic) carries different theological freight than a Reformed law-gospel emphasis; keep the referent narrowly Mosaic. Joshua extension: ‘le livre de la Loi’ (1:8, 8:30-35, 23:6, 24:26) grounds the Obedience and the Conquest doctrine; keep referent narrowly Mosaic, not natural-law.
Election
Approved rendering: élection
Transliteration: élection
Doctrine: Effectual Calling
Rejected alternatives: chance, destin
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] ‘Élection’ is the everyday word for political/democratic elections, risking a competitive/merit-based misreading of God’s sovereign choice; background: the Jansenist controversy within French Catholicism. Joshua extension: Joshua 24:15’s human ‘choisissez’ runs the same French cultural-vocabulary risk in the inverse direction — see new entry ‘choose’ below; teaching material must clarify that Joshua’s human choosing is covenant-response, not the ground of, and does not supersede, the baseline’s sola-gratia framing of divine election.
Grace
Approved rendering: grâce
Transliteration: grâce
Doctrine: Grace
Rejected alternatives: faveur, mérite
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] Catholic catechesis ties grâce to sacramental mediation; Reformed/Segond tradition insists on grâce apart from ecclesial mediation. Joshua extension: Joshua 24:2-13’s historical recital of God’s prior gracious acts must be taught as grounding, not earning, the v.14-15 demand — grace precedes and grounds the covenant demand, echoing (in an OT idiom) the Romans ‘obedience of faith’ ordering principle.
Obedience Of Faith
Approved rendering: obéissance de la foi
Transliteration: obéissance de la foi
Doctrine: Obedience of Faith
Rejected alternatives: devoir religieux
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] Obedience flowing from faith, not a Trent-style merit condition. Joshua extension: directly underlies the doctrine ‘Obedience and the Conquest’ — Joshua’s obedience (1:7-9, 6:2-5, 11:15) is covenant response to prior divine action, not military self-reliance or merit-earning compliance.
Serve Worship
Approved rendering: servir
Transliteration: avad / latreuō
Doctrine: Covenant Renewal at Shechem
Rejected alternatives: adorer (attitude only, insufficient for total-life-allegiance sense)
Original: Hebrew: עָבַד (avad) / LXX Greek: λατρεύω (latreuō)
Category: Faith
NEW. Total, exclusive life-allegiance and worship — the core passage’s structuring verb (8x in ch. 24). French ‘servir’ carries an everyday menial-task connotation (‘servir à table’) that risks reducing total covenantal life-allegiance to one compartmentalized religious activity. Must be reinforced by surrounding catechesis every occurrence, especially 24:14-15.
Choose
Approved rendering: choisir
Transliteration: bachar / haireomai
Doctrine: Covenant Renewal at Shechem
Original: Hebrew: בָּחַר (bachar) / LXX Greek: αἱρέομαι (haireomai)
Category: Faith
NEW. Deliberate, decisive election between real, mutually exclusive alternatives — the core passage’s central imperative (24:15). Secular modern French ‘choisissez votre propre vérité’ consumer-relativist framing risks receiving Joshua’s binary, no-third-option confrontation as one spiritual option among equally valid others. Note the inverse-direction collision with the baseline’s High-risk ‘élection’ entry. Must be paired with explicit binary framing (only the LORD or the gods of the nations — no third option) every occurrence.
Chesed Covenant Kindness
Approved rendering: bonté fidèle
Transliteration: chesed / eleos
Doctrine: Rahab and the Inclusion of the Nations by Faith
Rejected alternatives: bonté (too weak), miséricorde (over-imports NT devotional resonance), fidélité (loses affective warmth)
Original: Hebrew: חֶסֶד (chesed) / LXX Greek: ἔλεος (eleos, periphrastic)
Category: Faith
NEW. Steadfast, loyal covenant love within a relationship or treaty bond, requested by Rahab in 2:12. No single French word captures chesed’s full loyalty-plus-affection range. Rahab’s request shows a Canaanite outsider already reasoning in covenant categories — directly load-bearing for the inclusion-of-nations doctrine. Flag every occurrence for theologian review.
Commander Of The Lords Army
Approved rendering: le chef de l’armée du Seigneur
Transliteration: sar-tzeva-YHWH / archistratēgos dynameōs Kyriou
Doctrine: Courage through God’s Presence
Original: Hebrew: שַׂר־צְבָא־יְהוָה (sar-tzeva-YHWH) / LXX Greek: ἀρχιστράτηγος δυνάμεως Κυρίου (archistratēgos dynameōs Kyriou)
Category: Christology
NEW. A divine/angelic military figure who receives worship and commands Joshua to remove his sandals (5:14-15), echoing Moses at the burning bush. A long-debated christophany candidate, but the text does not name him further. Render literally without resolving the interpretive question in the translation itself. Any curriculum commentary identifying this figure as Christ must be flagged as traditional interpretation, not certain exegesis — mandatory theologian review.
Hardened Their Hearts
Approved rendering: endurcit leur cœur
Transliteration: chizzeq et libbam / katischysen tēn kardian
Doctrine: Holy War and Divine Judgment
Original: Hebrew: חִזֵּק אֶת־לִבָּם (chizzeq et libbam) / LXX Greek: κατίσχυσεν τὴν καρδίαν αὐτῶν (katischysen tēn kardian autōn)
Category: Judgment
NEW. God’s active judicial hardening of already-hostile hearts (11:20), paralleling Pharaoh’s hardening in Exodus. This predestination-adjacent judgment language intersects France’s own Jansenist-controversy theological memory over grace, free will, and divine hardening within French Catholicism. Requires theologian review, flagged alongside the baseline’s High-risk ‘élection’ entry.
Possess Dispossess
Approved rendering: posséder / déposséder
Transliteration: yarash / kateklēronomēsan
Doctrine: God’s Faithfulness to the Land Promise
Original: Hebrew: יָרַשׁ (yarash) / LXX Greek: κατεκληρονόμησαν (kateklēronomēsan)
Category: Kingdom
NEW. To take possession of land, with the double-edged sense that Israel’s taking possession simultaneously means the prior inhabitants’ being dispossessed (chs. 1, 12-19); the same Hebrew root produces nachalah, ‘inheritance.’ Must be flagged as the conceptual bridge to the new entry ‘inheritance_nachalah’ introduced from ch. 13 onward, using a different French verb family, so readers do not lose the theological unity that the conquest is fundamentally reception of a promised inheritance-gift, not merely a land-grab.
Inheritance Nachalah
Approved rendering: héritage
Transliteration: nachalah / klēronomia
Doctrine: God’s Faithfulness to the Land Promise
Original: Hebrew: נַחֲלָה (nachalah) / LXX Greek: κληρονομία (klēronomia)
Category: Kingdom
NEW. Land given by God as a permanent tribal/family possession fulfilling covenant promise (chs. 13-21). Secular modern French ‘héritage’ trends toward inert legal/financial inheritance divorced from covenant-promise dynamics. This term is also the direct lexical ancestor of NT salvation-inheritance vocabulary (Eph 1:14, 1 Pierre 1:4) — flag for theologian review to ensure covenant-promise-gift framing and future cross-curriculum consistency.
Avenger Of Blood
Approved rendering: le vengeur du sang
Transliteration: go’el haddam / ho anchisteuōn to haima
Doctrine: Obedience and the Conquest
Rejected alternatives: rédempteur (forbidden — imports salvation theology into a judicial role)
Original: Hebrew: גֹּאֵל הַדָּם (go’el haddam) / LXX Greek: ὁ ἀγχιστεύων τὸ αἷμα (ho anchisteuōn to haima)
Category: Justice
NEW. The near-kinsman legally obligated to avenge a slain relative’s blood (ch. 20), sharing the Hebrew root go’el with ‘redeemer’ elsewhere (Ruth 4; Job 19:25). French must NOT use any ‘rédempteur’ vocabulary despite the shared root. Flag for theologian review to prevent cross-curriculum confusion should Ruth or Job later enter this curriculum family.
Rest Menuchah
Approved rendering: repos
Transliteration: nuach / menuchah / katapausis
Doctrine: Rest in the Promised Land as a Type of Salvation Rest
Original: Hebrew: נוּחַ / מְנוּחָה (nuach / menuchah) / LXX Greek: κατάπαυσις (katapausis)
Category: Eschatology
NEW. Cessation from war/enemies and secure dwelling in the land (21:44); the LXX’s katapausis is the term Hebrews 3-4 later develops typologically. French ‘repos’ is an everyday, low-weight word (a nap, a day off) that does not automatically carry covenantal-eschatological freight. Flag for theologian review so teaching material connects it to the fuller canonical trajectory without over-reading NT typology back into Joshua’s own primarily historical claim.
Medium Risk Terms
God
Approved rendering: Dieu
Transliteration: Dieu
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Original: Hebrew: אֱלֹהִים (Elohim) / LXX Greek: θεός (theos)
Category: God
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] Secularization risk: ‘Dieu’ is used as a casual interjection (‘Mon Dieu!’) and, in academic/philosophical French, can be treated as an abstract deist concept rather than the personal, triune God of Scripture. Joshua extension: must be visually and doctrinally distinguished from lower-case ‘dieux étrangers’ / ‘dieux des Amorréens’ throughout the conquest narrative — reserve the capital exclusively for the true God (24:14-15, 24:19-20).
Holy
Approved rendering: saint
Transliteration: saint
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: pur
Original: Hebrew: קָדוֹשׁ (qadosh) / LXX Greek: ἅγιος (hagios)
Category: Sanctification
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] Set apart for God and morally pure; ‘pur’ alone loses the set-apart sense. Joshua extension: applies to ‘sol saint’ (holy ground, 5:15) — must remain strictly lower-case and localized to the theophany to avoid bleeding into the fixed proper-noun ‘la Terre Sainte’ (modern geopolitical/tourism referent).
Sanctification
Approved rendering: sanctification
Transliteration: sanctification
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: purification
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] The Spirit’s ongoing work of making believers holy; ‘purification’ risks a ritual-cleansing reading. Joshua extension: at 3:5 and 7:13 the LXX uses ἁγνίζω (‘purify’), a distinct root from ἁγιάζω; ‘purifiez-vous’ may in fact be more lexically precise than ‘sanctifiez-vous’ at those specific verses — see new entry ‘sanctify_purify’ below.
Sin
Approved rendering: péché
Transliteration: péché
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] Colloquial French uses ‘péché’ loosely for minor indulgence (‘péché mignon’), risking trivialization. Joshua extension: Achan’s sin (ch. 7) is corporate covenant treason, not a private lapse (‘Israël a péché,’ 7:11) — surrounding catechesis must restore the corporate weight; also see new entry ‘unfaithfulness_maal’ for the covenant-breach-specific nuance not carried by bare ‘péché’.
Israel
Approved rendering: Israël
Transliteration: Israël
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Original: Hebrew: יִשְׂרָאֵל (Yisra’el) / LXX Greek: Ἰσραήλ (Israēl)
Category: Covenant
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] Contemporary Middle East politics and France’s significant Jewish community make it easy to conflate biblical Israel with the modern nation-state. Joshua extension: risk is heightened here because the book’s subject matter is literally territorial; ‘terre promise’ / land-allotment language (chs. 13-21) must never be read as commentary on, or justification for, any contemporary political territorial claim.
Covenant
Approved rendering: alliance
Transliteration: alliance
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Rejected alternatives: contrat
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] Relational covenant bond, more than a legal contract. Joshua extension: the identical French word and Hebrew root (berit) also names the purely political Gibeonite treaty (ch. 9) — context alone disambiguates the theological (God-Israel) sense from the diplomatic (Israel-Gibeon) sense; teaching notes must flag which is active at each occurrence.
Faith
Approved rendering: foi
Transliteration: foi
Doctrine: Faith
Rejected alternatives: croyance, religion
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] Must specify personal trust, not generic religiosity. Joshua extension: Rahab’s confession (2:9-11) is the book’s clearest instance of this personal-trust sense from a Gentile outsider — must not be reduced to generic hospitality ethics or a purely social ‘inclusion’ narrative.
Salvation
Approved rendering: salut
Transliteration: salut
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: délivrance
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] Ground salvation explicitly in Christ’s work, not institutional membership. Joshua extension: the doctrine ‘Rest in the Promised Land as a Type of Salvation Rest’ depends on readers connecting ‘repos’ (see new entry ‘rest_menuchah’) to this term’s fuller New Testament trajectory without over-reading that typology back into Joshua’s own historical claim.
Gentiles
Approved rendering: païens
Transliteration: païens
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Rejected alternatives: étrangers
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] ‘Païens’ carries a pejorative connotation stronger than the original neutral sense. Joshua extension: prefer ‘les nations’ / ‘les peuples’ for the Amorites/Canaanite nations generally (24:15) to keep the Rahab-and-inclusion doctrine’s positive trajectory (a Gentile granted covenant inclusion by faith) from being colored by the pejorative connotation.
Fellowship
Approved rendering: communion fraternelle
Transliteration: communion fraternelle
Doctrine: Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: communion (bare)
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] Bare ‘communion’ is heard first as the Eucharist. Joshua extension: must be kept contextually distinct from the new entry ‘peace_offering_shelamim’ (sacrifice de communion/paix, ch. 8), which is a specific Levitical sacrificial category, not general New Testament koinonia-fellowship — do not let readers import this baseline term’s ecclesial sense into the Levitical offering.
Kingdom Of God
Approved rendering: Royaume de Dieu
Transliteration: Royaume de Dieu
Doctrine: Kingdom Mission
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] Distinguish from a political, territorial, or nationalist kingdom. Joshua extension: relevant background for ‘God’s Faithfulness to the Land Promise’ and ‘Rest’ doctrines — Joshua’s literal territorial kingdom-inheritance is a real, historical down payment, not itself identical to, but anticipating in canonical retrospect, the fuller Royaume de Dieu the New Testament proclaims.
Father
Approved rendering: Père
Transliteration: Père
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] God as personal Father. Joshua extension: no direct Joshua occurrence of divine Fatherhood language, but Joshua’s own repeated address ‘vos pères’ / ‘nos pères’ (ancestors, 24:2-15) uses the unrelated ordinary-French sense of ‘père/pères’ — ensure translators and reviewers do not confuse the doctrinal ‘Père’ (capitalized, divine) with the lower-case ancestral ‘pères’ (human forefathers) recurring throughout ch. 24.
Seed Of David
Approved rendering: descendance de David
Transliteration: descendance de David
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Rejected alternatives: semence de David (archaic)
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] Modern translations prefer ‘descendance’ over the now-crude-register ‘semence’. Joshua extension: no direct textual occurrence in Joshua; retained for consistency should teaching material draw the land-promise-to-Davidic-covenant canonical line forward.
Messiah
Approved rendering: Messie
Transliteration: Messie
Doctrine: Messianic Promise
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] The Anointed One fulfilling OT promise. Joshua extension: not a term used in Joshua itself; retained for any teaching material drawing the trajectory from Joshua’s conquest-and-rest narrative toward messianic fulfillment (cf. Hebrews 4’s use of Joshua/Jesus name-wordplay in Greek, a NT-side observation, not Joshua’s own claim).
Providence
Approved rendering: providence
Transliteration: providence
Doctrine: Providence
Rejected alternatives: destin, hasard
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] Must render as personal, purposive divine care, not a deist abstraction. Joshua extension: directly relevant to the new entry ‘lot_goral’ (casting lots for land division, chs. 13-19) — a specific, concrete instance of the Joshua narrative’s providence theology that French ‘sort’ risks flattening into chance.
Resurrection
Approved rendering: résurrection
Transliteration: résurrection
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ
Rejected alternatives: renaissance
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] Bodily, historical, once-for-all event, not a metaphor. Joshua extension: not itself a Joshua term, but the same secular-naturalism flattening risk this entry documents also applies directly to the new entry ‘sun_stood_still’ (10:12-14) — resist any translation choice or footnote that hedges the historicity of a singular reported miraculous sign.
Glory
Approved rendering: gloire
Transliteration: gloire
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] God’s radiant honor and presence, not self-achieved triumphalist glory. Joshua extension: directly relevant to guarding the new entry ‘lord_fought_for_israel’ refrain (ch. 10) against a triumphalist misreading crediting Israelite military prowess rather than God’s own glory and action.
Power Of God
Approved rendering: puissance de Dieu
Transliteration: puissance de Dieu
Doctrine: Power of God for Salvation
Rejected alternatives: force
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] ‘Puissance’ conveys sovereign capability; ‘force’ is too generic. Joshua extension: relevant background for the ‘commander_of_the_lords_army’ entry (5:14-15) and the Jericho wall miracle (ch. 6) — God’s, not Israel’s technique’s, capability accomplishes the conquest.
Calling
Approved rendering: appel
Transliteration: appel
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Rejected alternatives: vocation (clergy-narrowing risk)
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] Reserve ‘vocation’ with caution given its Catholic clergy/religious-life connotation. Joshua extension: no direct occurrence in Joshua; retained for cross-curriculum consistency, since Joshua’s own commissioning (1:1-9) functions analogously to a specific ministry calling without using this exact Hebrew/Greek term-family.
Called
Approved rendering: appelé
Transliteration: appelé
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Rejected alternatives: invité
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] Context-sensitive across ministry-calling and salvation-calling senses. Joshua extension: no direct textual occurrence; retained for consistency only.
Holy Spirit
Approved rendering: Esprit Saint
Transliteration: Esprit Saint
Doctrine: Sanctification
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] The personal third Person of the Trinity. Joshua extension: not a term occurring in Joshua’s Hebrew text; retained for cross-curriculum consistency only — do not introduce Spirit-language into Joshua translation where the Hebrew text does not warrant it.
Intercession
Approved rendering: intercession
Transliteration: intercession
Doctrine: Prayer and Intercession
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] Distinguish the Spirit’s/Christ’s unique intercession from Catholic devotional intercession of the saints. Joshua extension: no direct textual occurrence; retained for consistency, though Joshua 7:6-9’s lament before the Lord after the Ai defeat is thematically adjacent (petitionary prayer, not formal intercession).
Sanctify Purify
Approved rendering: sanctifier / se purifier (context-dependent)
Transliteration: qadash / hitqaddesh / hagiazō / hagnizō
Doctrine: Covenant Renewal at Shechem
Original: Hebrew: קָדַשׁ / הִתְקַדֵּשׁ (qadash / hitqaddesh) / LXX Greek: ἁγιάζω / ἁγνίζω (hagiazō / hagnizō)
Category: Sanctification
NEW. The LXX at Joshua 3:5 uses ἁγνίζω (‘purify’), a distinct root from ἁγιάζω (‘sanctify’) used elsewhere; French readers will not distinguish ‘se sanctifier’ from ‘se purifier’ without a gloss. ‘Purifiez-vous’ may be the more lexically precise rendering at 3:5 specifically. Flag for native-speaker review each occurrence (3:5, 7:13) to select the correct register.
Unfaithfulness Maal
Approved rendering: infidélité (envers l’alliance)
Transliteration: ma’al / parebēsan
Doctrine: Holy War and Divine Judgment
Rejected alternatives: péché (bare, insufficiently specific)
Original: Hebrew: מַעַל (ma’al) / LXX Greek: παρέβησαν (parebēsan)
Category: Sin
NEW. Covenant treachery — specifically misappropriating what belongs to God alone (Achan, ch. 7) or a breach-of-trust accusation between covenant partners (ch. 22). Bare ‘péché’ flattens this specific covenant-breach-of-trust register; use the qualified phrase wherever ma’al specifically is in view, reserving generic ‘péché’ for the general accountability doctrine elsewhere.
Fear The Lord
Approved rendering: craindre (l’Éternel / le Seigneur)
Transliteration: yare’ / phobeomai
Doctrine: Covenant Renewal at Shechem
Original: Hebrew: יָרֵא (yare’) / LXX Greek: φοβέομαι (phobeomai)
Category: Faith
NEW. Reverent covenant awe producing exclusive allegiance (24:14), distinct from visceral terror (2:9, the Canaanites’ dread). French ‘craindre’ defaults to dread/terror; no separate French verb is reserved for reverent covenant-awe. Render ‘craignez donc l’Éternel/le Seigneur’ with a clarifying catechetical gloss at 24:14, distinguishing it explicitly from the same verb’s dread-sense at 2:9.
Strong And Courageous
Approved rendering: fort et courageux
Transliteration: chazaq ve’ematz / ischye kai andrizou
Doctrine: Courage through God’s Presence
Original: Hebrew: חֲזַק וֶאֱמָץ (chazaq ve’ematz) / LXX Greek: ἴσχυε καὶ ἀνδρίζου (ischye kai andrizou)
Category: Faith
NEW. Resolve and boldness grounded not in temperament but in God’s promised presence (1:6,7,9; 10:25). French ‘sois fort et courageux’ reads naturally as a secular self-help/motivational-poster slogan. Must never be quoted without its grounding clause ‘car le Seigneur ton Dieu est avec toi’ in the same sentence or footnote.
Meditate
Approved rendering: méditer
Transliteration: hagah / meletaō
Doctrine: Obedience and the Conquest
Original: Hebrew: הָגָה (hagah) / LXX Greek: μελετάω (meletaō)
Category: Faith
NEW. Continuous, vocalized internalization and recitation of the Torah (1:8), ranging from a lion’s growl to low-voiced rumination. Contemporary French ‘méditer’ evokes silent mindfulness/yoga-adjacent practice. Gloss on first use as ‘réciter à voix basse, ruminer’ to preserve the embodied, vocalized-recitation sense.
Harlot Prostitute
Approved rendering: prostituée
Transliteration: zonah / pornē
Doctrine: Rahab and the Inclusion of the Nations by Faith
Rejected alternatives: hôtelière, aubergiste (historic harmonizing euphemisms — rejected)
Original: Hebrew: אִשָּׁה זוֹנָה (ishah zonah) / LXX Greek: γυνὴ πόρνη (gynē pornē)
Category: Faith
NEW. Rahab’s plain, unsoftened socio-economic and moral designation (2:1), deliberately retained by the narrator and by Hebrews 11:31/James 2:25. French harmonizing devotional paraphrase traditions have historically softened this term; such softening erases the moral candor that magnifies grace reaching the least likely convert. Use the accurate, unsoftened ‘prostituée’ — never a euphemism.
Ark Of Covenant
Approved rendering: arche de l’alliance
Transliteration: aron habberit / kibōtos tēs diathēkēs
Doctrine: God’s Faithfulness to the Land Promise
Original: Hebrew: אֲרוֹן הַבְּרִית (aron habberit) / LXX Greek: κιβωτὸς τῆς διαθήκης (kibōtos tēs diathēkēs)
Category: Covenant
NEW. Built on the inherited ‘alliance’ component. The sacred chest containing the tablets of the Law, locus of YHWH’s covenant presence leading Israel across the Jordan (chs. 3-4, 6). A first-occurrence footnote is recommended to preempt confusion with ‘l’arche de Noé’ for biblically unchurched French readers.
Circumcision
Approved rendering: circoncision
Transliteration: mulot / peritomē
Doctrine: Covenant Renewal at Shechem
Original: Hebrew: מוּל (mul) / LXX Greek: περιτομή (peritomē)
Category: Covenant
NEW. The covenant sign given to Abraham, renewed for the wilderness-born generation at Gilgal before the conquest begins (ch. 5). Standard French ‘circoncision’ is unambiguous; the Gilgal wordplay (rolling away the reproach of Egypt, galal) is untranslatable and must be explained by footnote, not attempted as a pun.
Peace Offering Shelamim
Approved rendering: sacrifice de communion / sacrifice de paix
Transliteration: shelamim / thysia sōtēriou
Doctrine: Covenant Renewal at Shechem
Original: Hebrew: שְׁלָמִים (shelamim) / LXX Greek: θυσία σωτηρίου (thysia sōtēriou)
Category: Covenant
NEW. A shared communal meal offering restoring covenant fellowship, offered alongside the olah at Ebal (8:31). Must be kept contextually distinct from the inherited baseline term ‘fellowship’ (‘communion fraternelle’) — this is a specific Levitical sacrificial category, not general Christian koinonia-fellowship.
Oath
Approved rendering: serment
Transliteration: shevu’ah / horkos
Doctrine: God’s Faithfulness to the Land Promise
Rejected alternatives: promesse (too weak for the sacral, binding weight intended)
Original: Hebrew: שְׁבוּעָה (shevu’ah) / LXX Greek: ὅρκος (horkos)
Category: Covenant
NEW. A binding, divinely-witnessed sworn oath, irrevocable once made (chs. 1, 9, 21). Must be distinguished from the weaker, casual ‘promesse’ to retain the sacral, binding weight, especially since this vocabulary grounds the book’s climactic fulfillment claim (21:43-45; 23:14).
Lord Fought For Israel
Approved rendering: le Seigneur combattait pour Israël
Transliteration: YHWH nilcham l’Yisra’el / Kyrios epolemei
Doctrine: Obedience and the Conquest
Original: Hebrew: יְהוָה נִלְחָם לְיִשְׂרָאֵל (YHWH nilcham l’Yisra’el) / LXX Greek: Κύριος ἐπολέμει … τῷ Ἰσραήλ (Kyrios epolemei … tō Israēl)
Category: God
NEW. The recurring conquest-narrative refrain crediting victory to divine, not human, agency (ch. 10). Must be paired with explicit doctrinal framing every occurrence to prevent a triumphalist misreading crediting Israelite military prowess rather than God’s own action for the victory.
Lot Goral
Approved rendering: sort (au sort)
Transliteration: goral / klēros
Doctrine: God’s Faithfulness to the Land Promise
Original: Hebrew: גּוֹרָל (goral) / LXX Greek: κλῆρος (klēros)
Category: Kingdom
NEW. A marked object cast to determine divinely-guided, not chance-based, land allocation (13:6; chs. 14-19). French ‘sort’ strongly connotes chance/gambling (‘tirer au sort’, ‘le sort en est jeté’), risking a fatalistic misreading. Gloss required on first occurrence: ‘un moyen par lequel on remettait la décision entre les mains de Dieu.‘
Cities Of Refuge
Approved rendering: villes de refuge
Transliteration: arei hammiqlat / poleis phygadeutēria
Doctrine: Obedience and the Conquest
Original: Hebrew: עָרֵי הַמִּקְלָט (arei hammiqlat) / LXX Greek: πόλεις φυγαδευτήρια (poleis phygadeutēria)
Category: Justice
NEW. Designated sanctuary cities protecting an unintentional manslayer from private blood-vengeance pending fair trial (ch. 20). Standard, clear French rendering. Any Christ-typology connection must be flagged in teaching notes as traditional homiletical application, not the Hebrew text’s own assertion.
Not One Word Failed
Approved rendering: pas une seule de toutes les bonnes paroles ne resta sans effet
Transliteration: lo nafal davar / ou diepesen rhēma
Doctrine: God’s Faithfulness to the Land Promise
Original: Hebrew: לֹא־נָפַל דָּבָר (lo nafal davar) / LXX Greek: οὐ διέπεσεν ῥῆμα (ou diepesen rhēma)
Category: Covenant
NEW. The book’s summary theological verdict: every specific promise the LORD made was fulfilled without exception (21:45). Per the general rule against softening universality claims, the totalizing language (‘toutes,’ ‘aucune’) must never be qualified or hedged.
Altar Of Witness
Approved rendering: autel de témoignage
Transliteration: mizbeach ed / bōmos martyrion
Doctrine: Covenant Renewal at Shechem
Original: Hebrew: מִזְבֵּחַ (עֵד) (mizbeach ed) / LXX Greek: βωμὸς (μαρτύριον) (bōmos martyrion)
Category: Covenant
NEW. A memorial, explicitly non-sacrificial altar built by the Transjordan tribes as a witness-sign, not for offerings (22:26-29). Must be clearly distinguished in context from the new entry ‘altar_sacrificial’ (ch. 8) — the entire narrative resolution of ch. 22 depends on this altar being explicitly memorial-only.
Stone As Witness
Approved rendering: pierre de témoignage
Transliteration: even le’edah / lithos eis martyrion
Doctrine: Covenant Renewal at Shechem
Original: Hebrew: הָאֶבֶן … לְעֵדָה (ha’even … le’edah) / LXX Greek: ὁ λίθος … εἰς μαρτύριον (ho lithos … eis martyrion)
Category: Covenant
NEW. An inanimate stone personified as a legal witness against future covenant unfaithfulness, set up at the close of the Shechem covenant renewal (24:26-27). A structural genre footnote (ANE suzerain-vassal treaty form) helps biblically low-literacy French readers understand why the chapter recounts Israel’s entire history (vv. 2-13) before demanding the vv. 14-15 decision.
Cling To The Lord
Approved rendering: s’attacher au Seigneur
Transliteration: davaq ba-YHWH / proskollaomai Kyriō
Doctrine: Covenant Renewal at Shechem
Original: Hebrew: דָּבַק בַּיהוָה (davaq ba-YHWH) / LXX Greek: προσκολλάομαι Κυρίῳ (proskollaomai Kyriō)
Category: Faith
NEW. Intimate, exclusive, adhesive covenant loyalty, using the same Hebrew root as marital cleaving (Gen 2:24) (23:8). The marital-bond resonance is not lexically recoverable in French without a cross-reference footnote; recommend flagging as a valuable teaching cross-reference reinforcing ch. 24’s exclusive-service demand.
Love The Lord
Approved rendering: aimer le Seigneur
Transliteration: ahavah et YHWH / agapan Kyrion
Doctrine: Covenant Renewal at Shechem
Original: Hebrew: אַהֲבָה אֶת־יְהוָה (ahavah et YHWH) / LXX Greek: ἀγαπᾶν Κύριον (agapan Kyrion)
Category: Faith
NEW. Covenant love, both affective and volitional, echoing the Shema’s love command (Deut 6:5), grounding obedience (23:11). French ‘aimer le Seigneur’ risks a purely sentimental, feelings-based reading; must be tied explicitly to obedience (23:6), not sentiment alone.
House Household
Approved rendering: moi et ma maison
Transliteration: bayit / oikos
Doctrine: Covenant Renewal at Shechem
Rejected alternatives: maison (bare — undersells household-covenant scope)
Original: Hebrew: בַּיִת (bayit) / LXX Greek: οἶκος (oikos)
Category: Covenant
NEW. The nuclear and extended household unit, including dependents and servants; Joshua’s personal covenant declaration extends to his whole house (24:15). Retain the traditional, Segond-aligned idiom ‘moi et ma maison,’ with a gloss ’= moi et toute ma famille,’ to preserve the corporate/familial scope of the declaration.
Holy Ground
Approved rendering: sol saint
Transliteration: admat qodesh / gē hagia
Doctrine: Courage through God’s Presence
Rejected alternatives: terre sainte (rejected — collides with the fixed proper-noun ‘la Terre Sainte’)
Original: Hebrew: אַדְמַת־קֹדֶשׁ (admat qodesh) / LXX Greek: γῆ ἁγία (gē hagia)
Category: Sanctification
NEW. Space rendered holy by God’s manifest presence at the theophany before Jericho (5:15), echoing Exodus 3:5. A lower-case ‘terre sainte’ rendering risks conflation with the fixed proper-noun French designation for the Holy Land as a geopolitical/tourism destination. Recommend ‘sol saint’ with explicit lower-case framing.
Sun Stood Still
Approved rendering: le soleil s’arrêta
Transliteration: vayiddom hashemesh / estē ho hēlios
Doctrine: Obedience and the Conquest
Original: Hebrew: וַיִּדֹּם הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ (vayiddom hashemesh) / LXX Greek: ἔστη ὁ ἥλιος (estē ho hēlios)
Category: Faith
NEW. A singular, unrepeated miraculous sign confirming God’s direct intervention (10:12-14), narrated as historical event. France’s strong Enlightenment/secular-rationalist cultural inheritance biases readers toward reading this as legend; the translation itself must not hedge the historical claim, though a brief historical-genre footnote is appropriate in teaching material.
Prosper Success
Approved rendering: prospérer / réussir
Transliteration: tatzliach / euodōthēsē
Doctrine: Obedience and the Conquest
Original: Hebrew: תַצְלִיחַ (tatzliach) / LXX Greek: εὐοδωθήσῃ (euodōthēsē)
Category: Covenant
NEW. Practical effectiveness resulting from covenant obedience to the Torah (1:8), not autonomous achievement. Risks a ‘prosperity gospel’ (santé-richesse) misreading in some charismatic French-speaking circles; must be framed explicitly as covenantal blessing contingent on obedience, never a wealth guarantee.
Low Risk Terms
David
Approved rendering: David
Transliteration: David
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] Standard proper name form. Joshua extension: David does not appear in Joshua; retained here only as background continuity for the land-promise doctrine’s trajectory toward the later Davidic and messianic land promises, should this curriculum cross-reference forward.
Peace
Approved rendering: paix
Transliteration: paix
Doctrine: Peace with God
[Inherited from Romans package, unchanged.] Relational peace with God through justification. Joshua extension: distinct from the new entry ‘peace_offering_shelamim’ (‘sacrifice de communion/de paix’), a Levitical sacrificial category — do not conflate this general relational-peace doctrine term with that specific sacrificial noun phrase.
Manslayer Unintentional
Approved rendering: meurtrier involontaire
Transliteration: rotseach bishgagah / phoneutēs akousiōs
Doctrine: Obedience and the Conquest
Original: Hebrew: רוֹצֵחַ בִּשְׁגָגָה (rotseach bishgagah) / LXX Greek: φονευτὴς ἀκουσίως (phoneutēs akousiōs)
Category: Justice
NEW. A legal category distinguishing accidental killing from premeditated murder (ch. 20). Standard French legal vocabulary; low doctrinal risk.
Altar Sacrificial
Approved rendering: autel
Transliteration: mizbeach / thysiastērion
Doctrine: Covenant Renewal at Shechem
Original: Hebrew: מִזְבֵּחַ (mizbeach) / LXX Greek: θυσιαστήριον (thysiastērion)
Category: Covenant
NEW. A sanctioned site of sacrificial worship, built by Joshua at Mount Ebal (8:30-35) accompanying covenant renewal. Standard, unambiguous French ‘autel’. Must be kept lexically and contextually distinct from ‘autel de témoignage’ (ch. 22).
Amorites
Approved rendering: Amorréens
Transliteration: Emori / Amorraioi
Doctrine: Covenant Renewal at Shechem
Original: Hebrew: אֱמֹרִי (Emori) / LXX Greek: Ἀμορραῖοι (Amorraioi)
Category: Covenant
NEW. A Canaanite people group whose land Israel occupies; functions in Joshua as a synecdoche for Canaanite peoples generally (24:15). Standard French Bible proper-name form; no rendering risk, though a brief teaching note on the synecdoche is recommended.
Foreign Gods
Approved rendering: dieux étrangers
Transliteration: elohei nekar / theoi allotrioi
Doctrine: Covenant Renewal at Shechem
Original: Hebrew: אֱלֹהֵי נֵכָר (elohei nekar) / LXX Greek: θεοὶ ἀλλότριοι (theoi allotrioi)
Category: Faith
NEW. Rival household or ancestral idols, the concrete objects of the false ‘serving’ Joshua 24:14-15 demands be removed. Never capitalize; reserve capital ‘Dieu’ exclusively for the true God.
Rahab Proper Name
Approved rendering: Rahab
Transliteration: Rachav / Rhaab
Doctrine: Rahab and the Inclusion of the Nations by Faith
Original: Hebrew: רָחָב (Rachav) / LXX Greek: Ῥαάβ (Rhaab)
Category: Faith
NEW. Proper name of the Canaanite woman of Jericho whose faith and rescue is narrated in ch. 2 and referenced in ch. 6. Standard transliteration; no rendering risk.
Scarlet Cord
Approved rendering: cordon écarlate
Transliteration: tiqvat chut hashani / spartion kokkinon
Doctrine: Rahab and the Inclusion of the Nations by Faith
Original: Hebrew: תִּקְוַת חוּט הַשָּׁנִי (tiqvat chut hashani) / LXX Greek: τὸ σπαρτίον τὸ κόκκινον (to spartion to kokkinon)
Category: Faith
NEW. The physical sign marking Rahab’s house for deliverance (2:18-21), functioning as a Passover-like sign of rescue. Render plainly ‘cordon écarlate.’ The Hebrew wordplay with tiqvah (‘hope’) is devotional tradition, not the verse’s lexical meaning; any teaching reference must be explicitly labeled as traditional devotional reflection.
Shout Trumpets
Approved rendering: cri de guerre / trompettes (cornes de bélier)
Transliteration: teru’ah / shofar / sēmasia / salpinx
Doctrine: Holy War and Divine Judgment
Original: Hebrew: תְּרוּעָה / שׁוֹפָר (teru’ah / shofar) / LXX Greek: σημασία / σάλπιγξ (sēmasia / salpinx)
Category: Judgment
NEW. The cultic-military war-cry and ram’s-horn trumpet signal at Jericho (ch. 6). French rendering is adequate; modern ecumenical French translations often retain ‘shofar’ transliterated with a gloss as an acceptable alternative.
Cross Over Jordan
Approved rendering: traverser
Transliteration: avar / diabainō
Doctrine: God’s Faithfulness to the Land Promise
Original: Hebrew: עָבַר (avar) / LXX Greek: διαβαίνω (diabainō)
Category: Covenant
NEW. The Jordan crossing, structurally parallel to the Red Sea crossing, inaugurating the conquest (chs. 1, 3-4). Direct, low-risk French rendering; any typological baptism cross-reference belongs in teaching notes as later Christian typology, not the text’s own claim.
Memorial Stones
Approved rendering: pierres commémoratives
Transliteration: avanim / lithoi
Doctrine: God’s Faithfulness to the Land Promise
Original: Hebrew: אֲבָנִים (avanim) / LXX Greek: λίθοι (lithoi)
Category: Covenant
NEW. Twelve stones set up at Gilgal as a deliberate mnemonic and intergenerational catechetical monument (chs. 3-4). Clear French rendering; no theological risk.
Place Names Jericho Ai Shechem
Approved rendering: Jéricho / Aï / Sichem
Transliteration: Yericho / Ai / Shekhem / Ierichō / Gai / Sychem
Doctrine: Obedience and the Conquest
NEW. Standard established French Bible proper-name forms (Segond/TOB-aligned) for the book’s principal narrative geography (chs. 2-8, 24). No rendering risk.
Referenced passages