What Does Deuteronomy 3:10 Mean?
All the cities of the level plain, and all Gilead, and all Bashan, to Salchah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan.
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
All the cities of the plain, and all Gilead, and all Bashan, unto Salchah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan.THE KEY
The verse turns possession into a map: the full reach of the land is made visible by naming it.
THE MEANING
The passage gives you the whole reach in a single gaze: the plain, Gilead, Bashan, then the boundary cities Salchah and Edrei. Its fullness is concrete and locatable; the named ground has edges rather than remaining an idea.
THE ROOT
מִישׁוֹר
mîšôr
GROWS FROM
י־ש־ר
To be straight, level, or upright.
“level plain” in this verse is mîšôr. The plain is מִישׁוֹר (mishor), from י־ש־ר (y-sh-r), whose root sense is level, straight, upright. Hebrew lets the evenness of the landscape and the idea of uprightness share one seed: this territory is named as level ground, not just a broad expanse.
ALSO GROWS
yashar: Straight, level, or upright.
יָשָׁר
The landscape’s levelness and the quality of uprightness grow from the same root.
meysharim: Level ground; also equity or uprightness.
מֵישָׁרִים
Psalm 26:12 uses this related form for an even place where a foot can stand, bringing the plain’s physical levelness into view.
THE PATTERN
Scripture makes received ground tangible by naming its extent, boundaries, or lines.
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 he made from one blood every nation of humankind to settle upon all the face of the earth, marking out their fitted seasons and setting the boundary stones of their dwelling.The cords fall to me in sweet places; indeed, my inheritance is beautiful.THE THREAD
My foot stands on level ground; in the assemblies I bless the LORD.The “even place” is מֵישָׁרִים (meysharim), from the same י־ש־ר (y-sh-r) root as מִישׁוֹר (mishor), “plain.” The root connects the level land in Deuteronomy with ground firm enough for a person to stand on.
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