What Does Deuteronomy 31:17 Mean?
Then my anger shall burn against them in that day, and I will let go of them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall become food, and many evils and narrow places shall find them, and they will say in that day, Have not these evils found us, because our God is not in our midst?
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
Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us?THE KEY
The people’s question about God’s absence echoes God’s own announced concealment of his face.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks a hard sequence into the present: God’s anger burns, God forsakes the people and hides his face, and evils and troubles overtake them. In that devastation, they ask whether their God is among them. Their question holds the wound of God’s declared withdrawal and the shock of recognizing it through suffering.
THE ROOT
וְהִסְתַּרְתִּי
vehistarti
GROWS FROM
סתר
s-t-r
to hide, conceal, or keep out of sight
“hide my face from them” in this verse is vehistarti. The verb’s root also forms words for a secret and a hiding place. The same word-family can name a concealed face or a place of shelter; here, the surrounding words make the concealment an act of withdrawal.
ALSO GROWS
seter: secret; hiding place
סֵתֶר
The hidden face belongs to a word-family that can also name a concealed place.
mistar: hiding place; refuge
מִסְתָּר
This branch makes the root’s other shade visible: concealment can also be shelter.
וַעֲזַבְתִּים
va'azavtim
GROWS FROM
עזב
ʿ-z-b
to leave, abandon, or forsake
“let go of them” in this verse is va'azavtim. The verb “forsake” and the word עֲזוּבָה (“forsaken”) grow from the same root: the act of leaving can become a condition or name. Isaiah 62:4 uses that same word-family when it says Zion will no longer be called “Forsaken.”
ALSO GROWS
azuv: abandoned; left behind
עָזוּב
This form names the state produced by the verse’s act of forsaking.
azuvah: forsaken; abandoned one
עֲזוּבָה
The same root turns an action into a name, as in Isaiah 62:4.
לֶאֱכֹל
le'ekhol
GROWS FROM
אכל
ʾ-k-l
to eat or consume
“become food” in this verse is le'ekhol. The Hebrew phrase pictures the people as becoming food for consumption. The same root also names food itself, so the language moves from what is eaten to those being eaten.
ALSO GROWS
okhel: food; something eaten
אֹכֶל
The noun makes the consuming image tangible: the people are exposed as what can be eaten.
ma'akhal: food; provision
מַאֲכָל
This related form shows the same root naming what is consumed.
THE PATTERN
When God’s presence is hidden or withdrawn, distress becomes a cry of distance or abandonment.
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?But your crookedness has cut between you and your God, and your shortcomings have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.Around the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani? My God, my God, why have you left me behind?THE THREAD
For in the day of harm he stores me away in his booth; he hides me in the hiding place of his tent; he lifts me high upon a rock.The same Hebrew root סתר names the hidden face in Deuteronomy and the hiding place in this Psalm. Here the speaker is concealed within refuge; the root holds both the wound of withdrawal and the shelter of a hidden place.
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