What Does Deuteronomy 29:11 Mean?
Your little ones, your wives, and the sojourner within your camp, from the one who cuts your wood to the one who draws your water.
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
Your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water:THE KEY
The covenant gathering includes the resident outsider and the people whose work keeps the camp supplied, alongside its families.
THE MEANING
This verse holds the whole community in view: children, wives, the resident outsider, and people who cut wood and draw water. The gathering includes people across family, origin, and daily work; none is left outside the roll call.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Belonging here is not limited to leaders, household heads, or those born within the community.
THE ROOT
גֵּר
gēr
GROWS FROM
גור
To sojourn or reside among a people.
English “stranger” can sound like someone unknown or merely passing through; גֵּר (gēr), a resident outsider or sojourner, points to someone dwelling among the people. The verse places this person within the same gathering as the families, while also naming workers who cut wood and draw water.
ALSO GROWS
gûr: To sojourn or dwell among others.
גּוּר
The action behind גֵּר (gēr) shows that the person named as a stranger is defined by living among the community.
gēr: A sojourner or resident outsider.
גֵּר
This is the word used in the verse: the resident outsider is named as part of the gathered people.
THE PATTERN
The gathering around God’s promise includes people across differences of age, origin, sex, and social standing.
Assemble the people, the men, the women, and the little ones, and the sojourner within your gates, so that they may hear and respond, and so that they may learn, and be struck with awe of the LORD your God, and guard to do all the words of this instruction;For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are far off, as many as the LORD our God calls to himself.There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither servant nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Jesus the Anointed One.THE THREAD
One instruction will be for the native of the land, and for the sojourner who sojourns among you.The same Hebrew word גֵּר (gēr), meaning a sojourner or resident outsider, appears in both verses. Exodus states that one law applies to the homeborn and the sojourner, opening up why the stranger stands within this gathering.
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