What Does Deuteronomy 2:34 Mean?
And we took all his cities at that time, and devoted to destruction the men, and the women, and the little ones of every city; we left no survivor.
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
And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain:THE KEY
The word “cities” does not stand for empty walls here: the verse names the men, women, and children killed inside them.
THE MEANING
You are shown that taking the cities means killing the people within them: men, women, and little ones. The closing phrase, “we left none to remain,” makes the totality explicit.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that “taking a city” describes only a change of territory: this verse names the people killed and says no survivor remains.
THE ROOT
וַנַּחֲרֵם
wan-naḥărēm
GROWS FROM
חרם
To place under a ban or devote irrevocably, including to destruction.
“devoted to destruction” in this verse is wan-naḥărēm. Alongside the force of total destruction, the Hebrew verb carries the idea of placing something under a ban. Here the verse makes that totality concrete by naming the people killed and ending with no survivor left.
ALSO GROWS
ḥērem: A ban, or something placed under the ban.
חֵרֶם
This noun names the status carried by the verb in the verse: what is devoted under the ban is set apart from ordinary use.
wəhaḥărāmtem: “And you shall devote under the ban,” rendered “utterly destroy” in 1 Samuel 15:3.
וְהַחֲרַמְתֶּם
The same root appears in a command whose scope includes infants and sucklings, showing how this word-family can express total destruction.
הִשְׁאַרְנוּ
hišʾarnû
GROWS FROM
שאר
To remain, be left over, or leave behind.
“left to remain” in this verse is hišʾarnû. The Hebrew says, in effect, “we left no survivor”: the verb names the act of leaving behind, then the sentence rules out any remainder. The wording makes the absence of survivors part of the act itself.
ALSO GROWS
she'ar: Remainder or rest.
שְׁאָר
This noun from the same root gives a name to what is left over, the very thing the verse says is absent.
she'erit: Remnant or surviving remainder.
שְׁאֵרִית
This branch makes the idea of what survives visible; the verse states that no such remnant is left.
THE PATTERN
Total destruction is stated by naming the people included and explicitly ruling out any survivors.
But from the cities of these peoples, which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall keep alive nothing with breath.And they devoted to destruction all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and donkey, with the mouth of the sword.Now go and strike Amalek, and devote all that they have to destruction, and do not spare them; but put to death man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.THE THREAD
And they devoted to destruction all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and donkey, with the mouth of the sword.Joshua 6:21 uses the same ḥ-r-m root and likewise lists men and women, young and old. The repeated root places this verse within a vocabulary of putting a whole population under the ban, with its totality made explicit in the people named.
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