What Does Deuteronomy 5:9 Mean?
You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a God who burns, visiting the crookedness of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.
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
Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me,THE KEY
The verse makes allegiance more than a posture: what you serve claims your labor, and its consequences can reach generations.
THE MEANING
The verse pairs bowing with serving: allegiance shows itself both in what receives your reverence and in what receives your work. The LORD declares that he visits the fathers’ crookedness upon the children through the third and fourth generation of those who hate him.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that rejection has only private consequences is undone here: the verse places the fathers’ iniquity upon children through generations among those who hate the LORD.
THE ROOT
פֹּקֵד
pōqēd
GROWS FROM
פקד
To attend to, visit, muster, or appoint.
“visiting” in this verse is pōqēd. The verb here names active attention, while the same root also appears in words for oversight and mustering. The LORD’s visitation of iniquity is presented as something he actively attends to, with consequences reaching the generations named in the verse.
ALSO GROWS
pāqad: To attend to or visit; in other contexts, to muster or appoint.
פָּקַד
Its range reveals that “visiting” carries the sense of deliberate attention, not merely passing by.
pequddah: An appointment, charge, or act of oversight.
פְּקֻדָּה
This branch makes the root’s sense of active attention and responsibility visible.
תָעָבְדֵם
taʿovdēm
GROWS FROM
עבד
To work or serve.
“serve” in this verse is taʿovdēm. The verse pairs bowing with a verb whose family also names the servant and the labor itself. Allegiance here is more than posture: it becomes an ongoing relation of service.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāvad: To work or serve.
עָבַד
This is the verb used for serving the images in the verse.
ʿeved: A servant or slave.
עֶבֶד
The same consonants that name the act of serving also name the one who serves.
ʿavodah: Work, labor, or service.
עֲבֹדָה
This branch shows how service becomes sustained work, not simply a single gesture.
לְשֹׂנְאָי
ləśōnʾay
GROWS FROM
שנא
To hate or be hostile toward.
The closing phrase identifies those among whom the generational visitation reaches: those who hate the LORD. The root links that description to words for hatred and for a hated person, making this an expressed hostility, not a passing feeling.
ALSO GROWS
śānēʾ: To hate or regard with hostility.
שָׂנֵא
This is the verb behind the verse’s description of those who hate the LORD.
śinʾāh: Hatred or hostility.
שִׂנְאָה
The noun branch makes the hostility named at the verse’s close explicit.
śānûʾ: Hated or detested.
שָׂנוּא
This related form shows the same root describing the object of hostility.
THE PATTERN
What receives a person’s service becomes that person’s master and shapes the direction of life.
And if it seems evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you settle. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.No one can serve two masters, for he will either hate the one and love the other, or he will hold fast to one and look down on the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.Do you not know that to the one you set yourselves beside as servants for hearing and response, his servants you are, the one you hear and respond to; whether of falling short unto death, or of hearing and response unto alignment?THE THREAD
And if it seems evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you settle. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.The word translated “serve” comes from the same Hebrew root, עבד, in both verses, the root also names a servant and labor. Joshua places the service of fathers beside the choice facing their children, opening up how allegiance can continue across generations.
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