What Does Deuteronomy 13:10 Mean?
And you shall pelt him with stones, so that he dies, because he has sought to push you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
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 thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.THE KEY
The Hebrew frames the offense as actively making you stray from the God who brought you out of slavery, and answers that act with a command to kill.
THE MEANING
The verse addresses you with a command to stone a person until he dies, grounding that killing in the deliverance from Egypt’s house of bondage. It names the offense as an attempt to make you stray from the LORD, not mere disagreement. Liberation from bondage is held together here with lethal enforcement of allegiance.
THE ROOT
לְהַדִּיחֲךָ
lehadiachka
GROWS FROM
נדח
To be pushed or driven away; in the causative form, to drive away or lead astray.
“push away” in this verse is lehadiachka. This verb can describe more than physical removal: it names someone causing you to stray from the LORD. The same root describes people driven among the nations in Deuteronomy 30:1, making separation a concrete movement in the text.
ALSO GROWS
niddach: One driven away or outcast
נִדָּח
It shows the other side of the action in this verse: the person led away becomes one who is separated.
hiddiach: To drive away or lead astray
הִדִּיחַ
This causative form exposes the active effort behind “thrust thee away”: someone is trying to make you stray.
הַמּוֹצִיאֲךָ
hamotzi'akha
GROWS FROM
יצא
To go out or come forth; in the causative form, to bring out.
“brought thee out” in this verse is hamotzi'akha. The verb identifies the LORD as the one who brings you out of Mitzrayim, the constricting place, and the house of bondage. That remembered release stands against the attempted movement away from the LORD, while the verse binds its defense to lethal force.
ALSO GROWS
yatsa: To go out or come forth
יָצָא
The root holds the movement of emergence inside the act of being brought out.
hotsi: To bring out or cause to emerge
הוֹצִיא
This causative form names the deliverance recalled as the reason for the command.
עֲבָדִים
avadim
GROWS FROM
עבד
To work or serve.
“house of bondage” in this verse is avadim. The Hebrew phrase is literally “house of servants” or “house of slaves,” making captivity a condition of forced service. The verse invokes that forced service as the place from which you were brought out, then uses that memory to frame the death sentence.
ALSO GROWS
eved: Servant or slave
עֶבֶד
It names the person bound to serve in the “house of bondage.”
avodah: Work or service
עֲבֹדָה
It makes visible the forced labor contained in the verse’s image of bondage.
THE PATTERN
The memory of being brought out of bondage grounds exclusive allegiance and refusal of rival gods.
I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own living soul, coax you open in a hidden place, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which you have not known, you nor your fathers;So, my beloved, flee from the service of images.THE THREAD
And it shall come to pass, when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you shall bring them back to your heart among all the nations where the LORD your God has driven you.The same נדח root appears in “hath driven thee” that appears in “thrust thee away.” Here, a person seeks to cause separation from the LORD; there, the text uses the root for being driven among the nations.
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