What Does Deuteronomy 24:7 Mean?
If a man is found stealing a living soul from among his brothers, from the children of Israel, and seizes him and sells him, then that thief dies, and you burn out the evil from your midst.
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
If a man be found stealing any of his brethren of the children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, or selleth him; then that thief shall die; and thou shalt put evil away from among you.THE KEY
The hidden object of the theft is נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “living soul”): the person is already a living self before anyone sells him.
THE MEANING
A human being is a living soul, never merchandise. The person who steals and sells a fellow Israelite stands under a death sentence, and the community is charged to remove this evil from its midst.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A price or a claim of ownership can turn a person into property. The verse calls the act theft even when a sale follows.
THE ROOT
גֹנֵב
gōnēv
GROWS FROM
גנב
To steal or take secretly.
“stealing” in this verse is gōnēv. The Hebrew names the taking as theft before it names the sale. Its object is a person, a living soul, so selling him does not make him property; it compounds the theft.
ALSO GROWS
gannāb: Thief.
גַּנָּב
The verse calls the person who commits this act הַגַּנָּב (haggannāb), “the thief,” keeping the identity of the crime visible through its consequence.
gĕnēvāh: Theft.
גְּנֵבָה
The related noun names the act as theft, showing that the taking itself is the core wrong, whether or not the person is later sold.
נֶפֶשׁ
nefesh
GROWS FROM
נפש
n-p-sh
The living self: a person as a living being.
“soul” in this verse is nefesh. The Hebrew says that the stolen thing is a nefesh, while the KJV renders it as “any of his brethren” and “him.” This word holds the person together as a living self, rather than reducing him to something that can be traded.
ALSO GROWS
nefesh chayyah: Living soul.
נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה
In Genesis 2:7, this phrase names the human as a living soul, the same kind of person this verse says must not be stolen.
nefashot: Living souls, persons (plural).
נַפְשׁוֹת
The plural form carries the same word into multiple living persons, keeping each one a person rather than an object.
THE PATTERN
When a human is seized and treated as property, scripture names the act as theft and places the wrong under public judgment.
And he who steals a man and sells him, or if he is found in his hand, is surely put to death.for fornicators, for those who lie in bed with men, for those who make men captives, for those who speak falsely, for oath-breakers, and if anything else lies against the healthy teaching;THE THREAD
And the LORD God shaped the ground-being, Adam, from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul.The same Hebrew word, נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh), names the human as a living soul in Genesis and the person being stolen in Deuteronomy. The person sold is that living self, not a unit of property.
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