What Does Deuteronomy 7:2 Mean?
When the LORD your God gives them before you, you shall strike them and devote them to destruction. You shall cut no covenant with them, nor show them favor.
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 when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them:THE KEY
The Hebrew repeats the root ḥāram for “utterly destroy,” making the command an emphatic ban that ends in destruction.
THE MEANING
When the LORD gives these peoples before you, the command is to strike them, place them under the ban, make no covenant, and show them no mercy. It leaves no route to treaty or sparing; its stated end is the destruction of the people.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This verse undoes the assumption that a victory attributed to God necessarily spares the defeated: here, it explicitly commands their destruction and refuses mercy.
THE ROOT
הַחֲרֵם תַּחֲרִים
haḥărēm taḥărīm
GROWS FROM
ח־ר־ם
ḥ-r-m
To ban or devote to destruction; the verb’s force here is made emphatic by repeating the root.
“devote them to destruction” in this verse is haḥărēm taḥărīm. The Hebrew uses two forms of the same root, making this more than defeat in battle: the command places the people under a ban and names destruction as its outcome. The related noun חֵרֶם (ḥērem, a thing placed under the ban) shows that the root also names what has been so devoted.
ALSO GROWS
ḥērem: A thing placed under the ban or devoted to destruction.
חֵרֶם
The noun names the status the repeated verb imposes in this command.
haḥărēm: Place under the ban or devote to destruction.
הַחֲרֵם
This form echoes תַּחֲרִים (taḥărīm) in the verse, intensifying the command through repetition.
וּנְתָנָם
ûnetānām
GROWS FROM
נ־ת־ן
n-t-n
To give, set, or place.
“gives them before you” in this verse is ûnetānām. The verb behind “deliver” carries the sense of giving or placing them before you. That placement comes first in the verse; the striking and ban follow.
ALSO GROWS
nātan: Give, set, or place.
נָתַן
This is the verb’s root form and preserves the sense of placing them before you.
mattānāh: Gift or thing given.
מַתָּנָה
The noun shares the root of the giving verb, showing its wider reach across words for giving and what is given.
תְחָנֵּם
teḥonnēm
GROWS FROM
ח־נ־ן
ḥ-n-n
To show favor or act graciously.
“show them favor” in this verse is teḥonnēm. The verse closes not only the path to covenant but also the path to favor. The root adds that shade beneath “mercy”: no favorable exception is to be granted.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēn: Favor or grace.
חֵן
This noun shares the root and makes the favor withheld in the verse visible.
teḥinnāh: A plea for favor or supplication.
תְּחִנָּה
The related word evokes an appeal for favor, the very opening this command closes.
THE PATTERN
Where the text invokes the ban, victory is framed as total destruction rather than treaty or sparing.
But you shall utterly devote them to destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded you.Now go and strike Amalek, and devote all that they have to destruction, and do not spare them; but put to death man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.THE THREAD
Do not bring a recoiling thing into your house, lest you become a devoted thing like it. You shall utterly loathe it and utterly recoil from it, for it is a devoted thing.The phrase “cursed thing” translates חֵרֶם (ḥērem), from the same root as “utterly destroy.” The shared root links the command to destroy with the status of something placed under the ban.
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