What Does Deuteronomy 27:23 Mean?
Cursed be he who lies with his mother-in-law. 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 his mother in law. And all the people shall say, Amen.THE KEY
The people’s “Amen” is rooted in firmness: their answer makes the judgment a shared assent, not a passing utterance.
THE MEANING
The verse names sex with one’s mother-in-law as cursed, and the people answer together, “Amen.” A family tie does not make the boundary weightless; the judgment is shared aloud by the community.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that a tie created by marriage makes a sexual violation harmless or beyond communal judgment.
THE ROOT
אָמֵן
amen
GROWS FROM
אמן
ʾ-m-n
To be firm or reliable; to support or establish.
Amen grows from a root of firmness and reliability, so the people’s response carries more than a conversational “yes”: they stand behind the declaration together. Their assent does not soften the curse; it gives the judgment shared weight.
ALSO GROWS
aman: To be firm or reliable; to support.
אָמַן
The people’s Amen is a firm response: they affirm the declaration together.
emunah: Firmness, steadiness, trust.
אֱמוּנָה
This branch shows the root’s connection between assent and something dependable enough to be leaned upon.
THE PATTERN
A community’s Amen turns a spoken declaration into shared assent.
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.Otherwise, if you speak well with the breath, how will the one who fills the place of the outsider say Amen at your giving of thanks, since he does not perceive what you say?THE THREAD
For all the promises of God are yes in him, and in him Amen, unto the weight of God through us.The Greek ἀμήν (amēn), meaning “truly” or “so be it,” carries the same Hebrew-rooted affirmation of firmness. Here the people affirm a curse; in Corinthians, Amen affirms God’s promises, showing how the same word can stand behind very different declarations.
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