What Does Deuteronomy 1:14 Mean?
And you answered me, and said, The word that you have spoken is good for us to do.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And ye answered me, and said, The thing which thou hast spoken is good for us to do.THE KEY
The Hebrew calls what was spoken a “thing,” so the word’s goodness is already leaning toward its doing.
THE MEANING
You recognize the value of a spoken word when it becomes something you can do together. Agreement takes the shape of action: the word is good for you to do, not only pleasant to hear.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that verbal agreement completes the matter: calling a word good points toward carrying it out.
THE ROOT
דָּבָר
davar
GROWS FROM
ד־ב־ר
to speak, utter
Davar can mean both “word” and “matter” or “thing.” The spoken proposal is not treated as an abstraction: it is already a matter with a direction, “for us to do.”
ALSO GROWS
dibber: spoke
דִּבֵּר
The verse uses this form for what was spoken; it shares its root with davar, the “thing” received for action.
devarim: words, matters
דְּבָרִים
This plural preserves the same overlap between what is said and what is at hand to be dealt with.
עָשָׂה
asah
GROWS FROM
ע־שׂ־ה
to do, make
The verb “to do” belongs to the same family as words for a deed or work. The verse makes the movement plain: a spoken matter becomes tangible through action.
ALSO GROWS
ma'aseh: deed, work
מַעֲשֶׂה
It names the action that makes the verse’s spoken matter concrete.
asuy: made, done
עָשׂוּי
It describes what has taken form through doing, the direction of the people’s reply.
THE PATTERN
A word’s goodness becomes tangible when it is received as shared action.
And Moses came and recounted to the people all the words of the LORD, and all the judgments, and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the LORD has said we will do.Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house upon the rock.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.THE THREAD
By the word of the LORD the heavens are made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.In Deuteronomy, davar is both the spoken instruction and the “thing” received for action. Psalm 33:6 uses the same root for the LORD’s word through which the heavens are made, extending the link from a word enacted together to creation itself.
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