What Does Deuteronomy 17:2 Mean?
If there is found in your midst, in one of your gates which the LORD your God gives you, a man or a woman who does the evil in the eyes of the LORD your God, by stepping across his covenant.
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
If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant,THE KEY
The verse pictures transgression as crossing over the covenant, so conduct within the community’s gates remains in God’s sight.
THE MEANING
Wrongdoing within a shared community remains visible to God; being among one’s own people does not make it morally private. The verse names the act as evil and as crossing over the covenant that binds the community.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that wrongdoing becomes morally invisible simply because it happens within one’s own community.
THE ROOT
לַעֲבֹר
laʿavōr
GROWS FROM
עבר
ʿ-b-r
to cross or pass over
“by stepping across” in this verse is laʿavōr. The Hebrew verb comes from עבר (ʿ-b-r), meaning to cross or pass over. It pictures covenant-breaking as crossing beyond the bond, giving the word more movement than the English label “transgressing” may suggest.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāvar: to cross, pass over
עָבַר
This is the root verb behind “transgressing”; it makes the breach an act of crossing.
maʿavār: passage, crossing
מַעֲבָר
This related noun carries the same crossing into a passage or route, illuminating the verse’s image of going beyond the covenant bond.
ʿēver: the other side, beyond
עֵבֶר
This related form names what lies across or beyond, sharpening the sense of crossing over the covenant.
הָרָע
hā-rāʿ
GROWS FROM
רעע
r-ʿ-ʿ
to be bad or evil; to cause harm
“does the evil” in this verse is hā-rāʿ. The verse names the conduct as evil in God’s sight, not merely as a label imposed by the person doing it. The word’s range includes what is bad or harmful, so the verse presents the breach as conduct with moral weight.
ALSO GROWS
raʿ: bad, evil
רַע
This adjective names the conduct as evil in the verse’s description.
hēreaʿ: to do evil, cause harm
הֵרֵעַ
This related verb makes the connection between evil and harmful action explicit.
rōaʿ: evil, harm
רֹעַ
This noun form keeps the same root’s association with evil and harm.
THE PATTERN
A covenant breach is pictured as crossing the bond and becoming visible in the shared life of a people.
Israel has missed the mark, and has also crossed over my covenant which I commanded them. For they have also taken from the devoted thing, and also stolen, and also lied, and also set it among their own vessels.But they, like Adam, have crossed over the covenant; there they have betrayed me.Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took hold of their hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not remain in my covenant, and I did not tend them, says the LORD.THE THREAD
Israel has missed the mark, and has also crossed over my covenant which I commanded them. For they have also taken from the devoted thing, and also stolen, and also lied, and also set it among their own vessels.Joshua uses the same Hebrew root, עבר (ʿ-b-r), meaning to cross or pass over, with “my covenant.” Its list of taking, stealing, and concealment makes concrete how the crossing named in Deuteronomy shows up in communal life.
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