What Does Deuteronomy 1:23 Mean?
And the word was good in my eyes, and I took twelve men from among you, one man from each tribe.
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 the saying pleased me well: and I took twelve men of you, one of a tribe:THE KEY
What pleases is already more than talk: דָּבָר (dābār, “word/matter”) can name both the proposal and the matter Moses takes up.
THE MEANING
A proposal can be received as good and become a concrete act: twelve men are selected, one from each tribe. The decision addresses the people as a whole while keeping each tribe visible.
THE ROOT
דָּבָר
dābār
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak; a word or matter.
English makes “saying” sound like speech alone. Hebrew dābār can mean a word or a matter, and the next clause gives the proposal a concrete consequence: it becomes the matter Moses takes up.
ALSO GROWS
dibbēr: he spoke
דִּבֵּר
This verb carries the same root consonants from spoken utterance into dābār, “word” or “matter.”
devarim: words or matters
דְּבָרִים
The plural preserves both senses, speech and concrete matters, in the same root family.
שֵׁבֶט
shevet
GROWS FROM
שׁבט
Rod or staff; also a tribe or tribal unit.
The Hebrew word translated “tribe” also means “rod” or “staff.” English gives only the people-group sense here, while the same word elsewhere can name a scepter, joining the language of a tribe with the image of a rod of rule.
ALSO GROWS
shevet: rod or staff
שֵׁבֶט
This is the same Hebrew word used for “tribe,” showing the root’s concrete and communal senses.
shevet: tribe or tribal unit
שֵׁבֶט
Here, one man is chosen for each distinct unit in the twelvefold people.
THE PATTERN
A whole people is made visible by naming the distinct parts that compose it.
Send men, that they may scout out the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel. From every tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, each one a lifted one among them.And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD, and rose up early in the morning, and built an altar beneath the mountain, and twelve standing stones, according to the twelve tribes of Israel.It has a great and high wall, and twelve gates, and at the gates twelve messengers, and names written upon them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel.THE THREAD
The rod shall not turn aside from Judah, nor the lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; and to him shall be the assembly of the peoples.The word translated “tribe” here is שֵׁבֶט (shevet, “tribe” or “staff”), the same word translated “sceptre” in Genesis. English separates the people-unit from the rod of rule, while Hebrew holds both senses in one word.
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