What Does Deuteronomy 18:14 Mean?
For these nations, which you possess, hear and respond to readers of clouds and to those who divine, but as for you, the LORD your God has not given you to do so.
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
For these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners: but as for thee, the LORD thy God hath not suffered thee so to do.THE KEY
The Hebrew frames the boundary as a matter of what is given: consulting diviners is not the way of seeking given to you.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks to a reader surrounded by voices claiming access to what is hidden. Listening is consequential: to heed a voice is to let it guide. The verse names the diviners’ counsel as a way of seeking that has not been given to you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that every voice claiming hidden knowledge is equally fit to direct you; hearing a voice does not make it the path given to you.
THE ROOT
יִשְׁמְעוּ
yishme'u
GROWS FROM
שמע
sh-m-ʿ
Hear, listen, heed; when hearing is taken up as guidance, hear and respond.
“hear and respond” in this verse is yishme'u. The nations do not merely hear the diviners; they heed them. The same root opens the Shema, שְׁמַע (shemaʿ, hear/listen), and forms שְׁמוּעָה (shemuʿah, report or tidings): what is heard can become the voice that directs a path.
ALSO GROWS
shemaʿ: Hear; listen.
שְׁמַע
The imperative shows hearing as an active response, like the nations heeding the diviners here.
shemuʿah: Report; tidings.
שְׁמוּעָה
A report is something received through hearing, linking what reaches the ear with what may shape a person’s understanding.
לֹא כֵן נָתַן לְךָ
lo khen natan
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
Give, set, place.
The phrase can be heard literally as “not so has [he] given to you.” The KJV expresses a boundary; the Hebrew also reveals that this way of seeking is not what has been given to the reader.
ALSO GROWS
natan: Give; set; place.
נָתַן
The verb anchors the verse’s closing contrast in what has or has not been given.
mattanah: Gift; present.
מַתָּנָה
This related word makes the root’s giving sense visible, clarifying the received-language behind the verse’s boundary.
THE PATTERN
The voice a person heeds becomes a direction for the path, and scripture identifies which voice guides.
The LORD your God raises up for you a prophet from your midst, from your brothers, like me. To him you hear and respond.And when they say to you, Seek to those who have familiar spirits, and to the knowers who chirp and moan, should not a people seek to their God? For the living, to the dead?My sheep hear and respond to my voice, and I perceive them, and they follow me.THE THREAD
The LORD your God raises up for you a prophet from your midst, from your brothers, like me. To him you hear and respond.The next verse repeats שָׁמַע (shamaʿ, hear and heed): “unto him ye shall hearken.” This reveals the passage’s paired movement: the diviners’ voice is not the given course, and the prophet’s voice is named as the one to heed.
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