What Does Deuteronomy 29:1 Mean?
These are the words of the covenant, which the LORD commanded Moses to cut with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant that he cut with them in Horeb.
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
These are the words of the covenant, which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.THE KEY
The Hebrew says the covenant is “cut,” giving the bond a concrete force that the English word “make” leaves quiet.
THE MEANING
You encounter covenant as a bond given shape by words and enacted as a commitment. The verse holds one covenant beside another, so renewed address can stand in continuity with what came before.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A renewed covenant must cancel the earlier bond.
THE ROOT
לִכְרֹת
likhrot
GROWS FROM
כרת
k-r-t
Cut; cut off.
The Hebrew verb beneath “make” is כָּרַת (karat, “cut”): the verse says the LORD commanded Moses to cut a covenant, then says the LORD cut the covenant at Horeb. The image gives the bond a tangible edge and force.
ALSO GROWS
karat berit: Cut a covenant.
כָּרַת בְּרִית
Genesis 15:18 uses the same Hebrew phrase, showing that the verse’s “made” belongs to a recurring image of covenant as an enacted bond.
karet: Cutting off; exclusion.
כָּרֵת
This word from the same root gives covenant language a serious edge: the bond carries real stakes of belonging.
דִּבְרֵי
divrei
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
Speak; word or matter.
דִּבְרֵי (divrei, “words of”) comes from the same word-family as דָּבָר (davar, “word, matter, thing”). The overlap lets the covenant’s words register as consequential matters, not detached sound.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: He spoke.
דִּבֵּר
The spoken word and the covenant’s words share the same root, linking speech with the bond’s formation.
davar: Word, matter, thing.
דָּבָר
This branch shows how the words of the covenant also name what is being set in place.
צִוָּה
tsivvah
GROWS FROM
צוה
ts-w-h
Command; charge.
“commanded” in this verse is tsivvah. The covenant’s words arrive as a charge, not as a passing thought. This root also gives the language for a mitzvah, a commandment: the words take shape as something laid before the people.
ALSO GROWS
mitzvah: Commandment; charge.
מִצְוָה
The same root names a specific charge, connecting the covenant’s words with an actionable form.
tsav: Command; order.
צַו
This shorter form keeps the directive quality audible in “commanded.”
THE PATTERN
Covenant takes shape through words that establish a bond and give it form.
On that day the LORD cut a covenant with Abram, saying, To your seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.And the LORD said to Moses, Write these words for yourself, for according to the mouth of these words I have cut a covenant with you and with Israel.For this is the covenant that I will set in place with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD. I will give my instructions into their minds, and scratch them upon their hearts. And I will be to them a God, and they will be to me a people.THE THREAD
And the LORD said to Moses, Write these words for yourself, for according to the mouth of these words I have cut a covenant with you and with Israel.Both verses use the דבר (d-b-r) word-family: דִּבְרֵי (divrei, “words of”) here and הַדְּבָרִים (haddevarim, “the words”) in Exodus. Exodus makes the link explicit: the covenant is made “after the tenor of these words,” so the words give the bond its form.
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