What Does Deuteronomy 31:5 Mean?
The LORD will set them before your face, so that you may do to them according to every commandment I have commanded you.
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 the LORD shall give them up before your face, that ye may do unto them according unto all the commandments which I have commanded you.THE KEY
The verse presents conquest as a placing before the face, with the response bound to the full command.
THE MEANING
Here, the LORD places opposing peoples before the addressed community, and its action is measured by the whole command already spoken. That command is severe: the surrounding instruction includes striking and utterly destroying these peoples.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being placed in a conflict does not make a response self-authorizing; this verse binds action to the command given.
THE ROOT
וּנְתָנָם
ûnetānām from natan
GROWS FROM
נתן
Give, set, place.
“set them” in this verse is ûnetānām from natan. The Hebrew uses natan, the root of giving and placing. The people are set before the community’s face, so the verse presents the confrontation as something handed over, followed by action governed by command.
ALSO GROWS
natan: give, set, place
נָתַן
This is the verb’s root sense: the people are given over and placed before the community.
mattanah: gift
מַתָּנָה
This branch preserves the root’s wider sense of something given; here, what is given over is a people in a conquest.
הַמִּצְוָה
hamitzvah tziviti
GROWS FROM
צוה
Command, charge, direct.
“commandments; commanded” in this verse is hamitzvah tziviti. The Hebrew pairs hamitzvah, “the command,” with tziviti, “I commanded,” from the same root. The response is tied to the whole instruction given; in this conquest passage, that instruction includes lethal violence.
ALSO GROWS
mitzvah: command, directive
מִצְוָה
The verse makes the community’s action answer to a stated directive.
tziviti: I commanded
צִוִּיתִי
The speaker and the command are joined in the wording: the action is measured against what has been commanded.
THE PATTERN
Scripture places action toward opponents within the bounds of the authority’s command.
When the LORD your God gives them before you, you shall strike them and devote them to destruction. You shall cut no covenant with them, nor show them favor.Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but give room to wrath. For it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will give back, says the LORD.THE THREAD
When the LORD your God gives them before you, you shall strike them and devote them to destruction. You shall cut no covenant with them, nor show them favor.“Deliver” here comes from the same Hebrew root, נתן (natan), meaning give, set, or place. The repeated wording makes the placement before the community and the violent command that follows part of the same stated sequence.
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