What Does Deuteronomy 20:10 Mean?
When you draw near to a city to fight against it, then call out to it for wholeness.
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
When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it.THE KEY
The call toward wholeness comes while you are still approaching the city to fight.
THE MEANING
Conflict can be at hand while a call toward wholeness is still spoken before force begins. The call comes from within the threat itself, so its presence does not erase the violence or guarantee acceptance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that speaking peace proves there is no threat: the verse places the approach to fight and the proclamation of peace in the same sentence.
THE ROOT
שָׁלוֹם
shalom
GROWS FROM
שׁלם
To be whole or complete; to make complete.
The city is called toward wholeness, not merely quiet. That call is spoken while the threat of violence is already present, so the word holds an offer of wholeness inside an encounter that remains dangerous.
ALSO GROWS
shalem: Whole, complete, intact.
שָׁלֵם
This related form makes the sense of shalom as wholeness visible beneath the English word peace.
shillem: To repay or make restitution.
שִׁלֵּם
This related form shows the root can describe making good what is owed, adding a dimension of restored completeness without implying that the conflict here is already resolved.
וְקָרָאתָ
veqarata
GROWS FROM
קרא
To call out or summon.
“call out” in this verse is veqarata. The action is a call addressed outward to the city, not a private feeling of peace. The word makes the offer public and direct, spoken to the very place being approached in hostility.
ALSO GROWS
qeri'ah: A calling or reading aloud.
קְרִיאָה
It keeps the focus on peace being voiced and heard, rather than remaining an unspoken intention.
miqra: A reading or summoned gathering.
מִקְרָא
This related form carries the sense of a public summons, echoing the outward address to the city.
THE PATTERN
Peace is spoken before its reception or the encounter’s outcome is settled.
And into whatever house you enter, first say, Let wholeness be to this house. And if a son of wholeness is there, your wholeness shall rest upon him, but if not, it shall turn back to you.If it is possible, as far as your reach extends, live in wholeness with all people.Turn aside from evil and do good; seek wholeness and pursue it.THE THREAD
Turn aside from evil and do good; seek wholeness and pursue it.The word translated “peace” is shalom, the same word used in this verse. Here the same wholeness is something pursued, opening the proclamation to the city as an active call rather than a settled condition.
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