What Does Deuteronomy 17:5 Mean?
Then you shall bring out to your gates that man or that woman who have done that evil thing, that man or that woman, and you shall stone them with stones until they die.
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 bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.THE KEY
The verb for stoning here is also used in Isaiah for clearing stones from a vineyard: one Hebrew root holds both stones used against a person and stones removed from the ground.
THE MEANING
The sentence is concrete and lethal: a man or woman is brought to the gates and stoned until death. The repetition keeps both the person subjected to the command and its final outcome in view.
THE ROOT
וּסְקַלְתָּם
u-seqaltam
GROWS FROM
סקל
To stone or pelt with stones; in a Biblical use, to clear stones away.
The verb here is סקל (saqal), “to stone”; Isaiah 5:2 uses the same root when stones are cleared from a vineyard. One word-family names stones used against a person and stones removed from the ground.
ALSO GROWS
saqal: To stone or pelt with stones.
סָקַל
This is the verb used for the act commanded in this verse.
wayseqalehu: He cleared it of stones.
וַיְסַקְּלֵהוּ
Isaiah 5:2 uses this form of the same root for clearing stones from a vineyard.
וְהוֹצֵאתָ
ve-hotzeta
GROWS FROM
יצא
To go out, come out, or emerge.
“bring out to” in this verse is ve-hotzeta. The verb translated “bring forth” is a causative form of יצא, literally “cause to go out.” The root describes the accused being brought out to the gates; the same causative form describes the LORD bringing Israel out of Egypt in Deuteronomy 13:10.
ALSO GROWS
yatsa: To go out or come out.
יָצָא
The basic motion inside the verse’s causative verb is going out.
hotsi: To bring out or cause to go out.
הוֹצִיא
This is the causative form used for the accused’s movement to the gates.
yetzi'ah: Departure or going out.
יְצִיאָה
This noun keeps the root’s outward movement visible across its forms.
THE PATTERN
The text repeatedly presents stoning as a public, communal form of execution.
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.And whoever pierces the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death. All the assembly shall certainly stone him. The sojourner as well as the native of the land, when he pierces the name of the LORD, shall be put to death.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
And he dug around it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with the red vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and hollowed out a winepress within it. And he waited for it to bring forth grapes, and it brought forth stinking grapes.Isaiah uses וַיְסַקְּלֵהוּ (wayseqalehu), from the same root סקל (saqal), for clearing stones from a vineyard. Both uses remain concrete: stones are removed from the ground in Isaiah and used against a person here.
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