What Does Deuteronomy 7:26 Mean?
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.
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
Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it: but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.THE KEY
The threshold matters: what is under the ban, once brought into the house, makes the one who admits it share its status.
THE MEANING
What you shelter is not neutral: the thing under the ban does not become harmless when it enters your house. The verse says you become like it, and its repeated language of abhorrence keeps its status in view. The house is implicated in what it admits.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that bringing something into your private space makes it yours to neutralize; this verse says the one who brings it in becomes like it.
THE ROOT
תּוֹעֵבָה
to'evah
GROWS FROM
תעב
ta'av
To abhor or regard as detestable.
“recoiling thing” in this verse is to'evah. The noun translated “abomination” and the verb translated “utterly abhor” share the root ta’av (תעב), meaning “to abhor.” The thing’s name and the response it calls forth echo one another.
ALSO GROWS
teta'avennu: You shall utterly abhor it.
תְּתַעֲבֶנּוּ
This verb appears in the verse and repeats the root of the noun naming the abomination, joining the thing and the response to it.
to'evah: An abomination, a detestable thing.
תּוֹעֵבָה
The noun names the object with the same root as the verse’s command to abhor it.
חֵרֶם
cherem
GROWS FROM
חרם
charam
To ban or devote irrevocably; the noun refers to something placed under the ban.
“devoted thing” in this verse is cherem. The Hebrew term translated “cursed thing” is cherem (חֵרֶם), a thing devoted under a ban. That sense adds the weight of a set-apart status to the warning: the one who brings it into the house becomes like it.
ALSO GROWS
cherem: A thing devoted under the ban.
חֵרֶם
This is the term repeated for the object and its status in the verse.
hecherim: To put under the ban or devote irrevocably.
הֶחֱרִים
This verbal branch shows the action behind the status carried by the object brought into the house.
THE PATTERN
What a household or community admits can implicate it in the status and consequences of what it shelters.
But the children of Israel broke trust with the devoted thing, for Achan, son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took from the devoted thing, and the burning of the LORD's anger flared against the children of Israel.Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?If anyone comes to you and does not carry this teaching, do not take him into your house, nor bid him rejoice.THE THREAD
But the children of Israel broke trust with the devoted thing, for Achan, son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took from the devoted thing, and the burning of the LORD's anger flared against the children of Israel.Both verses use cherem (חֵרֶם), a thing placed under the ban: Deuteronomy warns that bringing it into the house makes the householder like it, while Joshua shows a man taking it and Israel bearing the consequence. The shared root turns the warning into a visible pattern of what follows when the barred thing is claimed.
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