What Does Deuteronomy 5:31 Mean?
But as for you, stand here beside me, and I will speak to you all the commandment, and the statutes, and the judgments, which you shall train them, that they may do them in the land I give them to possess.
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
But as for thee, stand thou here by me, and I will speak unto thee all the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which thou shalt teach them, that they may do them in the land which I give them to possess it.THE KEY
Instruction is how a received gift becomes inhabitable: words spoken beside God are meant to become deeds in the land he gives.
THE MEANING
You receive words meant to travel through you into lived practice. The land is named as a gift, while the instruction shapes how life is practiced within it. What you receive and what you do are held together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that receiving a gift makes practice optional: the land is given, and the words are still meant to be done.
THE ROOT
תְּלַמְּדֵם
telammedem
GROWS FROM
למד
lamad
To learn; in the intensive form, to teach or train.
“train” in this verse is telammedem. The verb for “teach” grows from the same Hebrew root as “learn,” so teacher and learner are not linguistically separated roles. The words are received and passed on for practice; the root holds learning and formation together.
ALSO GROWS
lamad: To learn
לָמַד
The learner’s action grows from the same root as the teacher’s.
talmid: Learner, disciple
תַּלְמִיד
The learner’s name keeps visible that teaching leads into continued learning.
לְרִשְׁתָּהּ
lerishtah
GROWS FROM
ירשׁ
yarash
To take possession or inherit; in some contexts, to dispossess.
“possess” in this verse is lerishtah. The verse holds divine giving and human possessing in one clause: the land is bestowed, yet it is still something the people take possession of. The root can describe inheritance as well as taking possession, holding gift and active reception together.
ALSO GROWS
yoresh: Heir, one who inherits or takes possession
יוֹרֵשׁ
This form makes the receiving side of possession visible.
morashah: Inheritance, possession
מוֹרָשָׁה
The inheritance branch echoes the verse’s claim that the land is given.
חֻקִּים
chuqqim
GROWS FROM
חקק
chaqaq
To cut or engrave; by extension, to prescribe or decree.
The word translated “statutes” comes from a root associated with cutting or engraving, giving instruction the image of something marked into lasting form. Beside a land being received, that image lets the statutes suggest a shaped way of dwelling there.
ALSO GROWS
choq: A prescribed portion, statute, or decree
חֹק
This related word carries the sense of an established prescription.
mechoqeq: Lawgiver, one who decrees
מְחֹקֵק
The lawgiver form connects the root’s image of inscription with the act of establishing a rule.
THE PATTERN
Instruction reaches its purpose as words received and taught become actions.
And Moses came and recounted to the people all the words of the LORD, and all the judgments, and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the LORD has said we will do.This scroll of instruction shall not leave your mouth, but you will murmur over it day and night, so that you will guard to do all that is written in it. For then you will break through on your way, and then you will see clearly.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.THE THREAD
And train your children in them, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, and when you rise up.The Hebrew verb behind “teach” recurs in both verses: למד (lamad), “learn/teach.” Here instruction moves through Moses toward the people’s practice; there the same root carries it into the daily rhythm of a household.
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