What Does Deuteronomy 7:10 Mean?
He repays those who hate him to their faces, to make them perish. He does not linger with the one who hates him; he repays him to his face.
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 repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face.THE KEY
The root that names wholeness also names repayment: here the account is brought to its full due, and the verse names that due as destruction.
THE MEANING
Hatred of God meets a direct answer: the person who hates him stands face-to-face with him. The stated outcome is destruction, and the repayment is not indefinitely delayed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that hatred of God can remain unanswered forever.
THE ROOT
מְשַׁלֵּם
meshallēm
GROWS FROM
שׁלם
sh-l-m
To be whole or complete; in this verb form, to settle or pay what is owed.
“repays” in this verse is meshallēm. The same root family gives שָׁלוֹם (shalom), wholeness, and שָׁלֵם (shalem), complete. Here that family names a full repayment, and the verse says plainly that its due is destruction.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being, peace.
שָׁלוֹם
It shows that repayment and wholeness share the same root, though this verse names a destructive consequence.
shalem: Whole, complete.
שָׁלֵם
It makes the sense of a settled, completed account audible beneath “repayeth.”
לְהַאֲבִידוֹ
leha'avido
GROWS FROM
אבד
ʾ-b-d
To perish or be lost; in this causative form, to cause someone to perish.
“make them perish” in this verse is leha'avido. The root names perishing and being lost; in this form, the hater is brought to that end. The verse’s stated result is concrete: he is made to perish.
ALSO GROWS
ʾābad: Perish, be lost.
אָבַד
It exposes the root meaning beneath the verse’s word “destroy.”
ʾăvēdāh: A lost thing; loss.
אֲבֵדָה
It shows the same root describing what is lost or perishes.
יְאַחֵר
ye'acher
GROWS FROM
אחר
ʾ-ḥ-r
To be behind or after; as a verb, to delay or tarry.
“linger” in this verse is ye'acher. The root’s sense of “after” becomes the verse’s claim about timing: God does not push repayment into an indefinite later. The face-to-face answer is not left pending.
ALSO GROWS
ʾaḥar: After, behind.
אַחַר
It reveals the time-and-position sense carried into the verb “delay.”
ʾaḥarīt: The latter end, what comes afterward.
אַחֲרִית
It shares the root’s sense of what lies after, sharpening the verse’s denial of postponement.
THE PATTERN
God answers hatred and wrongdoing with certain recompense, while the right of repayment belongs to him.
Guarding faithful love for thousands, carrying crookedness, rebellion, and falling short, and who by no means leaves the guilty clean, visiting the crookedness of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, to the third and to the fourth generation.And yours, O Lord, is faithful love, for you repay each man according to his deed.Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but give room to wrath. For it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will give back, says the LORD.THE THREAD
To me belongs vengeance, and repayment. At its appointed time their foot slips, for the day of their falling is near, and what is readied comes hurrying upon them.“Recompence” comes from the same Hebrew שׁלם (sh-l-m) root family as “repayeth” here. The shared root connects this face-to-face repayment with the wider claim that recompense belongs to God.
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