What Does Deuteronomy 31:11 Mean?
When all Israel comes to see the face of the LORD your God in the place he will choose, you will call out this instruction before all Israel, in their ears.
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
When all Israel is come to appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing.THE KEY
The Hebrew verb for “read” also means “call aloud” or “proclaim”: the instruction reaches the whole people as a voice heard together.
THE MEANING
The instruction reaches you in shared hearing: it is voiced before the whole people, so what is read becomes audible to everyone gathered. Reading, gathering, and hearing form one act of communal reception.
THE ROOT
וְקָרָאתָ
veqara'ta
GROWS FROM
קרא
קרא (qara): to call, call aloud, summon, or proclaim.
“call out” in this verse is veqara'ta. The verb translated “read” is qara, whose range includes calling aloud, summoning, and proclaiming. Its branch מִקְרָא (miqra, a convocation or assembly) links public reading with a gathered people receiving the instruction by voice.
ALSO GROWS
qara: To call, call aloud, or proclaim.
קָרָא
This is the root verb in the verse: reading the instruction gives it a public voice.
miqra: A convocation or assembly.
מִקְרָא
This branch connects the act of reading aloud with a people gathered to hear.
qore: One who calls or reads aloud.
קֹרֵא
The reader carries the instruction into the assembly as spoken words.
THE PATTERN
When instruction is voiced before a gathered people, hearing becomes a shared act.
And he took the scroll of the covenant, and called it out in the ears of the people, and they said, All that the LORD has said we will do, and we will hear and respond.And he called aloud from it before the wide place that was before the gate of the waters, from first light until the middle of the day, facing the men and the women, and those who could tell the difference, and the ears of all the people were turned toward the book of the instruction.And he came to Nazareth, where he had been nourished. As was his custom, he entered the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read.THE THREAD
And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day.The Hebrew root קרא (qara, to call or proclaim) appears as “called” in Genesis and “read” in Deuteronomy. The shared root links naming and reading as voiced acts: the word reaches the people by being spoken.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us