What Does Deuteronomy 6:17 Mean?
You shall guard closely the commandments of the LORD your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he has 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
Ye shall diligently keep the commandments of the LORD your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he hath commanded thee.THE KEY
The doubled Hebrew “keep” makes obedience an act of sustained guarding over an entrusted word.
THE MEANING
You are presented as one entrusted with God’s commandments, testimonies, and statutes. The repeated Hebrew verb gives this keeping the quality of watchfulness: the instruction is held in care and carried into life. The verse describes an ongoing relationship with what has been entrusted to you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that merely possessing God’s commandments is the same as keeping them; the verse describes sustained attention to them.
THE ROOT
שָׁמוֹר תִּשְׁמְרוּן
shāmôr tišmerûn
GROWS FROM
שׁמר
To watch over, guard, or preserve.
“guard closely” in this verse is shāmôr tišmerûn. The form pairs שָׁמוֹר (shāmôr, “guard”) with תִּשְׁמְרוּן (tišmerûn, “you shall keep”) from the same root. That repetition intensifies the watchfulness: the instruction is held as something actively guarded.
ALSO GROWS
shōmēr: One who watches over or keeps.
שֹׁמֵר
This branch makes the verse’s keeping a guardian’s posture of attention.
mishmeret: A watch, charge, or entrusted duty.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
It shows the instruction as a charge held in care.
חֻקָּיו
ḥuqqāw
GROWS FROM
חקק
To cut or inscribe; by extension, to fix or prescribe.
חֻקָּיו (ḥuqqāw, “his statutes”) belongs to a word family associated with inscribing and fixing. The root gives the instruction the image of a durable shape impressed into life.
ALSO GROWS
ḥōq: A fixed ordinance, limit, or portion.
חֹק
It links the statute to something set in place and held as an enduring measure.
meḥōqēq: One who sets an ordinance or inscribes a rule.
מְחֹקֵק
This branch reveals the connection between the fixed instruction and the one who establishes it.
THE PATTERN
Instruction remains alive through watchful keeping that holds it in care and carries it into action.
Only guard yourself, and guard your living soul carefully, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they turn aside from your heart all the days of your life. But make them known to your children, and to your children's children.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.If you love me, guard my instructions.THE THREAD
The LORD watches over you from all harm; he watches over your living soul.The Hebrew root שׁמר (shāmar, “guard, keep, preserve”) appears here as “keep” and in Psalm 121:7 as “preserve.” The same root links your guarding of the entrusted instruction with the LORD’s guarding of you.
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