What Does Deuteronomy 27:21 Mean?
Cursed be he who lies with any beast. 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 lieth with any manner of beast. And all the people shall say, Amen.THE KEY
Amen is the hinge: the people publicly affirm the boundary together.
THE MEANING
This verse places sexual intercourse between a person and any animal under a curse, naming it as a public covenant boundary. The whole assembly voices Amen, so the declared judgment becomes a shared answer.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that this is only a private act is undone: the whole assembly answers to the consequence named in the verse.
THE ROOT
שֹׁכֵב עִם
shokhev ʿim
GROWS FROM
שכב
lie down
“lieth with” in this verse is shokhev ʿim. Hebrew uses the bodily verb “lie down” for the act, rather than an abstract category. The related noun מִשְׁכָּב (mishkav) can mean a bed or lying place and also a sexual relation, keeping physical posture and sex within one word family.
ALSO GROWS
shakhav: to lie down, sleep, or lie with sexually
שָׁכַב
The same verb names the bodily act at issue here.
mishkav: bed, lying place, or sexual relation
מִשְׁכָּב
This noun preserves the link between a physical lying place and sexual union.
אָמֵן
ʾāmēn
GROWS FROM
אמן
be firm or steady; support or confirm
The people’s Amen is rooted in firmness: it publicly confirms the declaration rather than serving as a decorative closing word. The same root gives אֱמוּנָה (emunah) its sense of steady trust, so the response carries the weight of taking the words as firm.
ALSO GROWS
emunah: steadiness or trust
אֱמוּנָה
This related word carries the root’s sense of firmness as something relied on.
ne'eman: firm or reliable
נֶאֱמָן
The same root describes what can be held as dependable.
THE PATTERN
A spoken covenant judgment becomes publicly shared when its hearers answer Amen.
And this water that brings the curse enters your inward parts, and makes your belly swell, and your thigh fall. And the woman says, Amen, amen.I also shook out my lap, and I said, So God shake out every man from his house and from his toil, who does not make this word stand. Even so, let him be shaken out, and emptied. And all the assembly said, Amen, and praised the LORD. And the people did according to this word.Let the LORD God of Israel be blessed, from the age to the age, and let all the people say, Amen. Praise the LORD.THE THREAD
I also shook out my lap, and I said, So God shake out every man from his house and from his toil, who does not make this word stand. Even so, let him be shaken out, and emptied. And all the assembly said, Amen, and praised the LORD. And the people did according to this word.Both verses place a spoken covenant consequence before the people and have them answer Amen. The Hebrew Amen grows from אמן, “firm, steady,” so the response is public confirmation, not an empty closing word.
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