What Does Deuteronomy 9:29 Mean?
Yet they are your people and your inheritance, which you brought out by your great power and by your stretched-out arm.
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
Yet they are thy people and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power and by thy stretched out arm.THE KEY
God calls them his inheritance in the same breath that names their exit: belonging is what the release carries into view.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to you through a people God names as his inheritance: their belonging is joined to being brought out by divine power. The extended arm pictures that power reaching into constriction, so being claimed and being released appear as one movement.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that you must first prove your worth to belong is undone here: the people are named as God’s inheritance as the verse describes God bringing them out.
THE ROOT
הוֹצֵאתָ
hotze'ta
GROWS FROM
יצא
yatsa
To go out, come out, or depart; in this form, to cause someone to go out.
“broughtest out” in this verse is hotze'ta. The Hebrew makes the exit itself central: God causes the people to go out. Their identity as God’s own is held together with that passage out of constriction, not separated from it.
ALSO GROWS
yatsa: To go out or come forth.
יָצָא
This is the root verb beneath “broughtest out”; the verse presents deliverance as an actual going out.
yetzi'ah: An exit or departure.
יְצִיאָה
This noun carries the root’s movement into the idea of an exit, illuminating the verse as a passage out rather than an abstract rescue.
motsa: An outlet, point of departure, or source.
מוֹצָא
The same root can name where something comes out from, adding the image of a way opened through what confines.
נַחֲלָה
nachalah
GROWS FROM
נחל
nachal
To inherit or receive as one’s portion.
“Inheritance” can sound like property alone, while nachalah carries the sense of a portion received and held. The verse calls the people God’s own possession and inheritance, binding belonging to what God has brought out.
ALSO GROWS
nachal: To inherit or take possession.
נָחַל
The verb shows the action behind the noun: an inheritance is a portion received and possessed.
hinchil: To cause someone to inherit or give as an inheritance.
הִנְחִיל
This causative form makes the giver’s role visible, echoing the verse’s emphasis on God as the one who brings and claims the people.
נְטוּיָה
netuyah
GROWS FROM
נטה
natah
To stretch out, extend, or incline.
“stretched out” in this verse is netuyah. The arm is described as extended: power appears as reach toward the people, not merely strength held at a distance. Natah also carries the sense of inclination, giving the image a direction toward those being brought out.
ALSO GROWS
natah: To stretch out, extend, or incline.
נָטָה
The root verb reveals the action inside “stretched out”: the arm is reaching outward.
netiyah: An inclination or extension.
נְטִיָּה
This related form carries the root’s sense of directed reach, reinforcing that the power in the verse is extended toward the people.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance creates belonging by bringing people out of what confines them.
I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.Perceive that the LORD is God; it is he who made us, and we are his. We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.But you are a chosen lineage, a royal priesthood, a set-apart nation, a people made his own, so that you may tell out the excellences of the one who called you out of darkness into his wondrous light.THE THREAD
Therefore say to the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the loads of the Egyptians, and I will snatch you from their service, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgments.The same root, יצא (yatsa), describes bringing the people out, and the same image of the stretched-out arm appears beside it. Deuteronomy gathers those movements into the name “thy people and thine inheritance”: the ones brought out are the ones claimed.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us