What Does Deuteronomy 31:22 Mean?
And Moses wrote this song that same day, and taught it to the children of Israel.
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
Moses therefore wrote this song the same day, and taught it the children of Israel.THE KEY
The teaching is made into a song so it can move from one writer into the mouths of an entire people.
THE MEANING
Here, meaning becomes something a people can carry together: a song is written and taught, so it can live in many voices, not only in the hand that wrote it. The verse speaks to you now through the movement from written word to shared memory.
THE ROOT
וַיְלַמְּדָהּ
vayelammedah
GROWS FROM
ל־מ־ד
l-m-d
To learn; in the Piel form used here, to teach.
“taught” in this verse is vayelammedah. The Hebrew root holds learning and teaching together: the teaching reaches its purpose as it becomes learning in the hearer. The song moves through that shared root from Moses’ voice into the people’s understanding.
ALSO GROWS
lamad: To learn.
לָמַד
This is the receiving side of the teaching: the people learn the song Moses gives them.
limmed: To teach or instruct.
לִמֵּד
This Piel form of the root names Moses’ action in the verse.
שִׁירָה
shirah
GROWS FROM
ש־י־ר
sh-y-r
To sing; song.
The Hebrew word for song grows from the same root as singing. What is written and taught here is already shaped to be voiced and carried by others.
ALSO GROWS
shir: To sing; a song.
שִׁיר
The shared root keeps the written song connected to the act of singing it.
meshorer: A singer.
מְשׁוֹרֵר
The song’s root also names the person who voices it, linking the teaching to its carriers.
THE PATTERN
A song can carry a community’s teaching from one voice into many.
Then Moses and the children of Israel sang this song to the LORD, and said, I will sing to the LORD, for he has risen high, risen high; horse and rider he has hurled into the sea.We will not hide them from their children, recounting to the generation that follows the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonders that he has done.Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and songs of breath, singing and plucking the strings in your heart to the Lord.THE THREAD
Let the word of the Anointed One settle in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another, in plucked songs, in hymns, and in songs of breath, singing with favor in your hearts to God.Deuteronomy holds writing and teaching together: the song enters the people rather than remaining on the page. Colossians describes the same pattern, where people teach one another through songs.
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