What Does Deuteronomy 29:17 Mean?
And you have seen their loathsome things, and their idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold, which were among them.
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
And ye have seen their abominations, and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them:)THE KEY
The verse places the idols’ precious materials beside their names, so their splendor and their substance remain in view at once.
THE MEANING
You see the things revered around you with their materials named plainly: wood, stone, silver, and gold. Their preciousness sits beside the verse’s names for them, abominations and idols. What is in view is both the object and the reverence attached to it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that costly materials make an object worthy of reverence dissolves here: the verse names the materials and the object together.
THE ROOT
גִּלּוּלֵיהֶם
gillulehem
GROWS FROM
גלל
g-l-l
To roll or roll away; this is a commonly proposed connection for גִּלּוּלִים, though its precise derivation is uncertain.
“idols” in this verse is gillulehem. The Hebrew label is derisive, and its proposed connection to “rolling” keeps the image close to a physical object. The verse makes that material presence explicit by naming wood, stone, silver, and gold.
ALSO GROWS
galal: To roll, roll away
גָּלַל
This verb is the proposed root connection behind the word for idols, though the etymology is debated.
galgal: Wheel; something that rolls
גַּלְגַּל
This related word preserves the root’s concrete sense of rolling and keeps attention on physical things.
שִׁקּוּצֵיהֶם
shiqqutsehem
GROWS FROM
שקץ
sh-q-ts
To regard as detestable; to be abhorrent.
“loathsome things” in this verse is shiqqutsehem. The Hebrew word carries the force of revulsion: these objects are named as things that provoke abhorrence. Their materials sit right beside that name, so silver and gold do not erase it.
ALSO GROWS
shaqats: To abhor; regard as detestable
שָׁקַץ
The verb preserves the force behind the verse’s name for the objects.
sheqets: A detestable thing; an abomination
שֶׁקֶץ
This related noun shows the same root naming something as abhorrent.
THE PATTERN
Scripture strips idols of mystique by naming their materials, their making, or their emptiness.
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.Who has shaped a god, or poured out a hewn image that profits nothing?So then, as touching the eating of what is slaughtered for idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no God but one.THE THREAD
Son of man, these men have lifted up their idols upon their heart, and set the stumbling block of their crookedness before their face. Should I be sought at all by them?Ezekiel uses the same Hebrew word for “idols” and places them in the heart. The visible objects among the people here open onto the same pattern carried inward.
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