What Does Deuteronomy 9:18 Mean?
And I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights. I did not eat bread, nor drink waters, because of all your falling short, in which you missed the mark, in doing wickedness in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him.
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 I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights: I did neither eat bread, nor drink water, because of all your sins which ye sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.THE KEY
One Hebrew root names both “your sins” and “you sinned,” joining the failures to the acts of missing.
THE MEANING
Here, wrongdoing is not an abstract label before the LORD: the people’s failures are named, and their conduct provokes anger. Moses falls before the LORD and fasts because of their wrongdoing. The verse holds communal accountability and intercession in one scene.
THE ROOT
חַטַּאתְכֶם
ḥaṭṭāʾtḵem
GROWS FROM
חטא
To miss, go wrong; by extension, to sin.
“missed the mark” in this verse is ḥaṭṭāʾtḵem. The KJV gives two English forms, but the Hebrew repeats one seed: חטא (ḥāṭāʾ, “to miss”). “Your sins” and “you sinned” belong to one word family, keeping both the failures and the acts of missing in view.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēṭʾ: Sin; a miss or offense.
חֵטְא
This noun echoes the verse’s “sins,” showing that the named failures share the same root as the act of sinning.
ḥāṭāʾ: To miss; to sin.
חָטָא
This verb echoes “ye sinned,” binding the people’s actions to the same root as the failures named in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Intercession brings the failure of many before God through one who stands on their behalf.
And Moses softened the face of the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why does the burning of your anger flare against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great strength and with a gripping hand?And he said to cut them down, unless Moses, his chosen, had stood in the breach before him, to turn back his burning from ruining them.Therefore he is also able to deliver to the very end those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to plead for them.THE THREAD
If you do well, will you not be lifted up? And if you do not do well, falling short crouches at the door. Its reaching is toward you, and you shall rule over it.The word translated “sin” here shares the root חטא (ḥāṭāʾ, “to miss”) with “sins” and “sinned” in Deuteronomy. Genesis pictures the miss crouching at the door; Deuteronomy names both the people’s failures and their acts of missing.
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