What Does Deuteronomy 27:16 Mean?
Cursed be he who makes light of his father and his mother. And all the people shall say, Amen.
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
Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother. And all the people shall say, Amen.THE KEY
The Hebrew for “setteth light by” comes from a root that can also mean “curse,” binding contempt to the language of curse.
THE MEANING
When you make your father or mother seem weightless, the verse names that contempt as a rupture with consequence. The people’s “Amen” gives the judgment a shared voice rather than leaving it hidden.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that contempt is harmless when it is quiet: even slighting is named, and the assembly answers aloud.
THE ROOT
מַקְלֶה
maqlēh
GROWS FROM
ק־ל־ל
To be light, make light of, or treat as slight; in some forms, to curse.
“makes light of” in this verse is maqlēh. English separates “set light by” from “curse,” but both meanings appear in the range of ק־ל־ל: making something slight or treating it as insignificant. Here, slighting a parent is named as an act with weighty consequences.
ALSO GROWS
qal: Light or slight.
קַל
This branch makes the image in “setteth light by” concrete: the parent is treated as though their place carries no weight.
qelalah: Curse.
קְלָלָה
This branch shows that the same root family also reaches the language of cursing, linking contempt with a spoken curse.
mekallel: One who curses.
מְקַלֵּל
The same root appears in a direct command concerning one who curses a father or mother in Exodus 21:17.
THE PATTERN
The text measures family honor by whether a parent’s place is held as weighty or reduced to nothing.
Give weight to your father and your mother, that your days may lengthen upon the ground which the LORD your God gives you.Hear and respond to your father, who begets you, and do not scorn your mother when she is old.Give weight to your father and your mother, which is the first commandment with promise.THE THREAD
And he who curses his father or his mother is surely put to death.The verb translated “curseth” comes from the same root ק־ל־ל as “setteth light by.” The shared root brings the two expressions together: slighting and cursing belong to one word family, and this verse states the consequence with full severity.
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