What Does Deuteronomy 6:14 Mean?
You shall not walk after other gods, of the gods of the peoples surrounding 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
Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you;THE KEY
The gods called “other” are named with the same Hebrew root as what you go “after,” binding the object of pursuit to the direction of your steps.
THE MEANING
What surrounds you can become a direction of allegiance when it becomes what you follow. The verse speaks now to the pull of surrounding loyalties: proximity can quietly turn into direction, and direction into allegiance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that what everyone around you reveres must therefore be worthy of your allegiance.
THE ROOT
אַחֲרֵי
acharei
GROWS FROM
אחר
Behind, after; later, another.
“after / other” in this verse is acharei. The phrase uses the same consonantal root twice: “after” (אַחֲרֵי, acharei) and “other” (אֲחֵרִים, acherim). English separates them, while Hebrew echoes the thing followed in the very word naming it as other.
ALSO GROWS
acharei: After, behind.
אַחֲרֵי
This is the word in “go after,” naming the direction of pursuit.
acherim: Others, other.
אֲחֵרִים
The gods are called “other” with the same root that names what is “after,” joining the object of pursuit to the act of following.
THE PATTERN
What commands allegiance is revealed by what a person follows and serves.
You shall have no other gods before my face.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.THE THREAD
Thus says the LORD, What crookedness did your fathers find in me, that they went far from me, and walked after vapor, and became vapor?“Walked after” uses the same Hebrew root, אחר, as “after” and “other” in Deuteronomy. The shared wording reveals the movement: what is followed shapes the follower.
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