What Does Deuteronomy 1:20 Mean?
And I said to you, You have come to the mountain of the Amorites, which the LORD our God gives to us.
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 I said unto you, Ye are come unto the mountain of the Amorites, which the LORD our God doth give unto us.THE KEY
The mountain is still before you, yet the verse already names it as something God is giving.
THE MEANING
You meet what feels like a formidable height, and the verse holds two truths together: you have come this far, and the LORD is giving what lies ahead. Your arrival is real, but it is not the source of the gift.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that your own achievement is the source of what lies ahead dissolves here: God is named as giver before the ground is possessed.
THE ROOT
נֹתֵן
nōtēn
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
To give, set, or place.
“gives” in this verse is nōtēn. The word נֹתֵן (nōtēn) speaks of giving as an action in progress. Since נתן also means to set or place, the gift is not only something transferred to you; it is a place being set before you.
ALSO GROWS
nātan: To give, put, or set.
נָתַן
This is the root verb behind “doth give,” joining giving with placing something within reach.
mattānāh: A gift or present.
מַתָּנָה
This noun from the same root makes explicit what the verse’s ongoing “giving” carries: what is ahead is received as a gift.
בָּאתֶם
bāʾtem
GROWS FROM
בוא
b-w-ʾ
To come, enter, or arrive.
“You have come” in this verse is bāʾtem. The verse speaks of reaching a threshold, not of already possessing what lies beyond it. The Hebrew root holds coming and entering together, so arrival is the beginning of encounter with the place being given.
ALSO GROWS
bōʾ: To come or enter.
בּוֹא
The root verb gathers arrival and entry into one movement, deepening “Ye are come unto” as reaching an entrance.
māvōʾ: An entrance or approach.
מָבוֹא
This related word for an entrance echoes the verse’s sense of coming to the edge of what is ahead.
THE PATTERN
What stands before you as ground is first named as something given.
Every place the sole of your foot treads, I have given to you, as I spoke to Moses.The heavens, even the heavens, are the LORD's; but the earth he gives to the children of humankind.Do not tremble, little flock, for your Father delights to give you the governance.THE THREAD
Every place the sole of your foot treads, I have given to you, as I spoke to Moses.Joshua uses the same root, נתן (natan), for “given” that Deuteronomy uses for “doth give.” The shared root joins the ground your foot reaches with the place God sets before you as a gift.
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