What Does Deuteronomy 20:8 Mean?
And the record-keepers shall speak yet again to the people, and they shall say, Who is the man who is fearful and soft of heart? Let him go and turn back to his house, lest the hearts of his brothers melt like his own.
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 officers shall speak further unto the people, and they shall say, What man is there that is fearful and fainthearted? let him go and return unto his house, lest his brethren’s heart faint as well as his heart.THE KEY
Fear can spread from one soft heart to the people beside it, and the fearful man is permitted to go home.
THE MEANING
Fear does not stay private: your softened heart can affect the hearts beside you. The fearful person may return home, and the verse treats that departure as protection for him and his brothers. It makes room for fear without pretending its effect on a group is harmless.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that courage means staying in the fight no matter how afraid you are: the fearful man is told to go home before his fear unsettles others.
THE ROOT
יִמַּס
yimmās
GROWS FROM
מָסַס
To melt or dissolve.
“melt” in this verse is yimmās. The verb gives “faint” the image of melting, a heart losing its firmness. The same root describes hearts melting and wax melting before fire, so the verse pictures fear as a collapse that can spread through the group.
ALSO GROWS
nāmas: Melted.
נָמַס
Joshua 2:11 uses this form with “our hearts,” showing the image can describe a whole people’s response.
kə-himmēs: As [wax] melts.
כְּהִמֵּס
Psalm 68:2 uses the root for wax melting before fire, giving the image a tangible sense of lost firmness.
רַךְ לֵבָב
rakh levav
GROWS FROM
רכך
To be soft or tender.
“soft of heart” in this verse is rakh levav. The phrase describes a heart as soft, connecting vulnerability to physical tenderness. Isaiah 7:4 uses the same root with “heart” in the phrase “neither be fainthearted,” making that image explicit.
ALSO GROWS
rakkot: Tender, soft.
רַכּוֹת
Genesis 29:17 uses this form for Leah’s eyes, carrying the root’s sense of tenderness into the description of a heart under strain.
yērekh: Grow soft; become fainthearted.
יֵרַךְ
Isaiah 7:4 uses this verb with “heart,” echoing the verse’s image of a heart going soft.
THE PATTERN
A person’s fear can become a shared condition because one heart’s collapse reaches the people beside it.
And when we heard these things, our hearts melted, and no breath stood up any longer in any man from your face. For the LORD your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth below.And say to him, Keep watch, and quiet yourself. Do not fear, and do not let your heart soften for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, the burning of Rezin's anger, and of Syria, and of the son of Remaliah.If one limb aches, all the limbs ache with it, and if one is clothed in weight, all of them rejoice with it.THE THREAD
And when we heard these things, our hearts melted, and no breath stood up any longer in any man from your face. For the LORD your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth below.Joshua uses the same Hebrew verb for melting and again joins it to the heart. The shared root shows how one heart’s melting can become a shared condition.
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