What Does Deuteronomy 21:2 Mean?
Then your elders and your judges shall go out, and they shall measure to the cities that are around the pierced one.
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
Then thy elders and thy judges shall come forth, and they shall measure unto the cities which are round about him that is slain:THE KEY
Before anyone can name a killer, the elders measure the distance, locating which community must answer for the death.
THE MEANING
When a life is found slain and the killer is unknown, the death does not become an unowned fact. Elders and judges measure toward the surrounding cities, tracing the death to the nearest community whose responsibility can be named.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
An unknown killer does not make a death nobody’s concern.
THE ROOT
וּמָדְדוּ
u-maddu
GROWS FROM
מדד
m-d-d
To measure or extend, to ascertain an extent.
The measure makes the distance from the slain person to the surrounding cities visible. What could remain an unlocated death becomes a relation between a person and a community.
ALSO GROWS
madad: To measure or extend.
מָדַד
This is the verb’s basic action: measuring traces how far the responsibility reaches.
middah: Measure, extent, or dimension.
מִדָּה
The related noun names the extent that the elders’ action establishes.
שֹׁפְטִים
shofetim
GROWS FROM
שפט
sh-p-t
To judge or govern; to establish judgment.
The judges carry the same root as מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat), meaning judgment or justice. Here their work begins with going out and measuring, making justice an inquiry into where responsibility lies.
ALSO GROWS
shaphat: To judge or govern.
שָׁפַט
This verb names the work carried by the judges who go out to investigate.
mishpat: Judgment, justice, or due order.
מִשְׁפָּט
The related noun shows that judging is tied to establishing what is due, even before the killer is known.
THE PATTERN
A life taken continues to claim an answer, even when the killer is unknown.
And the LORD said, What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.So you shall not defile the land where you are, for blood defiles the land; and the land cannot be covered over for the blood poured out in it, except by the blood of the one who poured it out.and to Jesus, the one who stands between, of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks stronger than Abel.THE THREAD
Who measures the waters in the hollow of his hand, marks out heaven with a hand's span, holds the dust of the earth in a measuring basket, weighs the mountains in the scales, and the hills in the balance?The verb translated “measure” here shares the root מדד (madad, to measure) with Isaiah’s “measured.” Here measurement traces a death toward the nearest city; in Isaiah it gives waters and heavens a comprehensible extent, revealing relations that otherwise seem too vast to locate.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us