What Does Deuteronomy 2:9 Mean?
And the LORD said to me, Do not press the Moabites, nor stir them up in battle. For I will not give you any of their land as a possession, since I have given Ar to the children of Lot as a possession.
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 the LORD said unto me, Distress not the Moabites, neither contend with them in battle: for I will not give thee of their land for a possession; because I have given Ar unto the children of Lot for a possession.THE KEY
The word for “possession” also carries the sense of dispossessing, so this inheritance is bounded by what must remain another people’s.
THE MEANING
The reader can be near something that is not theirs to take. The verse holds gift and limit together: one people’s possession is named alongside another people’s boundary.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that proximity or power turns another person’s inheritance into an available possession.
THE ROOT
יְרֻשָּׁה
yerushah
GROWS FROM
ירש
yarash
To take possession or inherit; in some forms, to dispossess.
English “possession” sounds like a static thing, but its root also names the act of taking possession or dispossessing. The verse places restraint inside the language of inheritance itself: one people’s receiving does not erase another people’s holding.
ALSO GROWS
yarash: To inherit, take possession, or dispossess.
יָרַשׁ
The same root can name receiving land and driving another out, revealing the boundary carried within this inheritance.
morashah: An inheritance or possession received.
מוֹרָשָׁה
This related noun shows inheritance as something allotted to be held, not simply something seized because it is nearby.
THE PATTERN
An inheritance comes with boundaries that protect what has been given to others.
And when you draw near facing the children of Ammon, do not press them, and do not stir them up. For I will not give you any of the land of the children of Ammon as a taking, since I have given it to the children of Lot as a taking.Do not move the age-old boundary your fathers made.And he made from one blood every nation of humankind to settle upon all the face of the earth, marking out their fitted seasons and setting the boundary stones of their dwelling.THE THREAD
And he said to him, I am the LORD who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to take hold of it.The Hebrew word translated “inherit” here comes from the same root, ירש (yarash), as “possession” in Deuteronomy 2:9. Together, the verses show land as something given to be inherited, with its boundaries held in view.
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