What Does Deuteronomy 7:3 Mean?
Neither shall you marry into them. Your daughter you shall not give to his son, nor shall you take his daughter for your son.
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 make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.THE KEY
The command makes marriage a boundary of kinship, because giving and taking a daughter binds households together.
THE MEANING
This verse draws a hard boundary around marriage: a daughter is not given to their son, and their daughter is not taken for yours. Its two directions show that the bond joins households, not only the two people who marry. The command treats that joining as a matter of belonging.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The assumption that marriage concerns only two individuals dissolves here: the verse treats it as a bond between households.
THE ROOT
תִתְחַתֵּן
titḥatten
GROWS FROM
חתן
To become related by marriage; to enter an in-law relationship.
“marry into” in this verse is titḥatten. The verb translated “make marriages” shares its root with words for a bridegroom and a father-in-law. Hebrew frames this act as entering an in-law network, so the two clauses form one reciprocal boundary around kinship.
ALSO GROWS
ḥatan: Bridegroom; son-in-law.
חָתָן
The groom’s place in the family is named through the same root that describes the marriage bond.
ḥoten: Father-in-law.
חֹתֵן
This branch makes the new family relation visible: marriage creates kin on both sides.
ḥatunnah: Wedding; marriage.
חֲתֻנָּה
The wedding is the event that brings the households into this in-law relation.
תִּתֵּן
titten
GROWS FROM
נתן
Give, set, or place.
“give” in this verse is titten. The verse describes the daughter as given into another household; the root also carries the sense of setting or placing. Paired with the marriage verb, this makes the transfer part of a bond that establishes new kinship.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: Gift.
מַתָּנָה
This noun from the same root shows the wider language of giving carried by the verb in the verse.
netinah: Giving; an act of giving.
נְתִינָה
The branch keeps attention on the act itself: one household gives, and the marriage establishes a relation between households.
THE PATTERN
Marriage joins households, and that joined bond can carry allegiance with it.
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother, and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.Of the nations concerning which the LORD said to the children of Israel, You shall not go in to them, nor shall they come in to you, for surely they will bend your hearts after their gods. Solomon clung to these in love.A wife is bound by the instruction while her husband lives, but if her husband has fallen asleep, she is free to marry whom she wills, only in the Lord.THE THREAD
And you take from their daughters for your sons, and their daughters go whoring after their gods, and make your sons go whoring after their gods.Both verses use לָקַח (lāqaḥ, “take/receive”) for bringing a daughter into a son’s household. Exodus names the allegiance consequence that Deuteronomy states in its next verse: the bond can turn sons toward other gods.
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