What Does Deuteronomy 13:14 Mean?
Then you shall search it out, and dig, and ask well; and, behold, if it is truth, and the thing set firm, that such abomination is done among you;
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
Then shalt thou enquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought among you;THE KEY
Here, truth is not the first account that sounds certain; it is what stands after seeking, searching, and careful questioning.
THE MEANING
An alarming charge does not become truth simply because it names something abominable. The matter remains open to inquiry, investigation, and careful questioning until it is shown to be true and established among you. Only then does the verse name what is happening within the community.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this verse dissolves is that a disturbing accusation proves itself just by being disturbing.
THE ROOT
אֱמֶת
emet
GROWS FROM
אָמַן
ʾ-m-n
Be firm, reliable, or confirmed.
The verse pairs emet with נָכוֹן (nakhon, established), doubling the language of firmness. Truth here is what inquiry confirms and what stands, not merely what is alleged.
ALSO GROWS
emunah: Steadfast trust; reliability.
אֱמוּנָה
It shares the root’s sense of firmness, showing that truth carries the quality of what can be relied upon.
amen: Surely; affirmed as firm.
אָמֵן
Amen echoes the same root of firmness, an affirmation that what is said stands.
וְחָקַרְתָּ
veḥaqarta
GROWS FROM
חקר
ḥ-q-r
Search out, examine, investigate.
“dig” in this verse is veḥaqarta. This verb names active examination between seeking and asking; the claim is tested rather than accepted at face value. The same root appears in Proverbs 18:17, where a neighbor investigates the first account.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēqer: Inquiry or examination.
חֵקֶר
This noun makes explicit the work carried by the verse’s command to search.
ḥōqēr: One who examines or searches.
חֹקֵר
The branch names the one doing the searching, emphasizing that certainty comes through examination.
נָכוֹן
nakhon
GROWS FROM
כון
k-w-n
Be firm, become established, stand prepared.
“set firm” in this verse is nakhon. The word translated “certain” carries the sense of being established. Beside emet, it makes the result of the inquiry something that stands, not mere confidence.
ALSO GROWS
hekin: To make ready or set in place.
הֵכִין
It shows the root’s movement from something unsettled toward something established.
makhon: A settled place or base.
מָכוֹן
Its sense of a stable foundation illuminates the verse’s demand that the matter be established.
THE PATTERN
A claim becomes established truth through examination that can test its first appearance.
The aligned one at the head of his own contention seems straight, but his neighbor comes and searches him out.These were of nobler birth than those in Thessalonica, who received the word with all eagerness of heart, and sifted the writings daily, whether these things held so.Do not judge by what the eye sees, but judge the judgment of alignment.THE THREAD
The aligned one at the head of his own contention seems straight, but his neighbor comes and searches him out.“Searcheth” translates חָקַר (chaqar), the same root as “make search” here. The shared root makes investigation the hinge between an account that seems right and a matter that is established.
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