What Does Deuteronomy 13:9 Mean?
But you shall surely strike him down; your hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people.
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
But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.THE KEY
One hearer’s hand begins the killing, but the whole people are named as its second hand.
THE MEANING
The verse puts its hearer under an explicit command to kill the person named in the surrounding sentence. The hearer’s hand acts first, and the hands of the whole people follow; the command assigns lethal action to one person and to the group that completes it.
THE ROOT
הָרֹג תַּהַרְגֶּנּוּ
hārōg tahargennû
GROWS FROM
הרג
h-r-g
to kill, slay
“surely strike him down” in this verse is hārōg tahargennû. The Hebrew repeats the root in an infinitive absolute and a finite verb, literally “killing, you shall kill him.” English conveys this emphasis with “surely,” while the repeated Hebrew root keeps the act itself in the foreground.
ALSO GROWS
hereg: slaughter, killing
הֶרֶג
This noun names the act that the repeated verb commands.
harug: slain; one who is killed
הָרוּג
This form names the person on whom the commanded act falls.
בָּרִאשׁוֹנָה
bāriʾshōnāh
GROWS FROM
ראש
r-ʾ-sh
head, top; by extension, foremost or beginning
The word for “first” belongs to the same word-family as “head” and “beginning.” The text places the hearer’s hand at the head of the sequence, before the people’s hands follow.
ALSO GROWS
rosh: head, top
רֹאשׁ
It shares the root’s sense of what is foremost.
reshit: beginning, first portion
רֵאשִׁית
It shows the root extending from what is foremost to the start of a sequence.
בָּאַחֲרֹנָה
bāʾaḥărōnāh
GROWS FROM
אחר
ʾ-ch-r
after, behind
The word translated “afterwards” comes from a root that also means “after” or “behind.” The people’s hands are positioned as following the first hand, making the order of participation explicit.
ALSO GROWS
achar: after, behind
אַחַר
It carries the basic sense of what comes after or follows.
acharit: end, latter time
אַחֲרִית
It extends the same after-meaning to what comes later.
THE PATTERN
Scripture names both the first actor and the crowd, making collective violence a sequence of human choices rather than an anonymous event.
The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So you shall burn the evil out from your midst.You shall not go after the crowd to do harm. Nor shall you answer in a dispute, turning aside after the crowd, to bend judgment.And they threw him out of the city and stoned him, and the witnesses laid down their cloaks at the feet of a young man called Saul.THE THREAD
The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So you shall burn the evil out from your midst.This verse repeats the sequence: the witnesses’ hands go first, then the hands of all the people. The witnesses’ role makes the initiating hands explicit while the community’s hands still follow.
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