What Does Exodus 23:32 Mean?
You shall cut no covenant with them, nor with their gods.
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
Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.THE KEY
The Hebrew word rendered “make” means “cut,” so the verse treats covenant as a bond cut into being, not a casual agreement.
THE MEANING
A covenant reaches beyond a transaction into allegiance: the bond joins the reader to the people and powers bound up in it. The verse’s prohibition names both the people and their gods.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
An agreement with people can remain neutral, untouched by the gods or loyalties attached to them.
THE ROOT
תִּכְרֹת
tikrot
GROWS FROM
כרת
cut, sever, cut off
The Hebrew says not to “cut” a covenant, כָּרַת בְּרִית (karat berit, cut a covenant). Covenant is pictured as a bond enacted by cutting, and the prohibition reaches both the people and the gods joined to that bond.
ALSO GROWS
karat berit: cut a covenant
כָּרַת בְּרִית
The verb behind “make” gives covenant the force of an enacted bond.
nikhretah: was cut off
נִכְרְתָה
The same root can describe severance, showing that cutting can mark either a bond made or a bond ended.
THE PATTERN
Binding allegiance cannot be divided between the LORD and rival gods.
Guard yourself, lest you cut a covenant with the settlers of the land to which you come, lest it be a snare in your midst.No one can serve two masters, for he will either hate the one and love the other, or he will hold fast to one and look down on the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot share in the Lord's table and the table of demons.THE THREAD
On that day the LORD cut a covenant with Abram, saying, To your seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.Genesis uses the same “cut a covenant” expression for the LORD’s bond with Abram; Exodus forbids that same kind of bond with the people and their gods named in the verse. The shared verb presents covenant as an enacted joining, while what is joined determines the force of the act.
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