What Does Deuteronomy 5:10 Mean?
And showing faithful love to thousands of those who love me and guard my commandments.
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 shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.THE KEY
The “mercy” here is chesed, faithful love whose reach to thousands dwarfs the few generations of consequence named just before it.
THE MEANING
God’s faithful love reaches to thousands; it is not a passing reprieve. The verse presents love for God as taking shape in guarding the instruction entrusted to the reader, joining devotion with attentive care.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that God’s response to human failure stops at punishment: the surrounding words set a few generations of consequence beside faithful love reaching thousands.
THE ROOT
חֶסֶד
ḥesed
GROWS FROM
ח־ס־ד
Faithful love, loyalty, or kindness expressed in relationship.
The verse’s “mercy” carries the sense of faithful love: a durable bond, not merely a moment of leniency. Its reach to thousands makes that fidelity the larger horizon of the passage.
ALSO GROWS
ḥasadim: Deeds or expressions of faithful love.
חֲסָדִים
This plural form shows chesed as love made visible in what is done.
ḥasid: A faithful or devoted person.
חָסִיד
The related word describes someone marked by the same quality of fidelity named in the verse.
שֹׁמְרֵי
shomrei
GROWS FROM
ש־מ־ר
To keep watch over, guard, or preserve.
“guard” in this verse is shomrei. The word rendered “keep” evokes guarding and watchfulness. The commandments are held as something entrusted to care, giving love a form of attentive fidelity.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: A keeper, guard, or watchman.
שֹׁמֵר
It shows the watchful sense still present in “keep.”
mishmeret: A guard, charge, or duty entrusted to someone.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
It connects keeping the commandments with faithfully tending what has been placed in one’s care.
לְאֹהֲבַי
le’ohavai
GROWS FROM
א־ה־ב
To love or hold dear.
The verse places love beside guarding, so affection is not left as an inward feeling: it is paired with watchful care. The two distinct roots meet in one picture of lived devotion.
ALSO GROWS
ahav: To love.
אָהַב
This is the verb behind “them that love me.”
ahavah: Love or affection.
אַהֲבָה
The noun form names the love that this verse joins with guarded practice.
THE PATTERN
Covenant love becomes visible in lived fidelity, while God’s faithful love reaches beyond a single generation.
But the faithful love of the LORD is from age to age upon those in awe of him, and his alignment is to the children's children.If you love me, guard my instructions.He has shown you, O human, what is good. And what does the LORD seek from you, but to do justice, and to hold fast to faithful love, and to walk low with your God?THE THREAD
For I delight in faithful love and not slaughter, and the knowledge of God more than the ascending offerings.“Mercy” in both verses translates חֶסֶד (ḥesed), faithful love. Hosea shows this quality as central to lived relationship with God, opening the phrase here as steadfast relational fidelity.
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