What Does Genesis 31:50 Mean?
If you bend my daughters low, or if you take other wives beside my daughters, no man is with us. See, God is witness between me and you.
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
If thou shalt afflict my daughters, or if thou shalt take other wives beside my daughters, no man is with us; see, God is witness betwixt me and thee.THE KEY
The absence of human witnesses does not make private harm invisible: the verse places God as witness between the people involved.
THE MEANING
When harm happens inside a relationship, the lack of other people does not erase what is done. The verse names mistreating daughters and taking additional wives as conduct that remains seen by God, who is witness between the two people.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what happens without human witnesses is unseen or beyond account.
THE ROOT
עֵד
ʿēd
GROWS FROM
ע־ו־ד
ʿ-w-d
Bear witness, attest.
“witness” in this verse is ʿēd. The Hebrew word names more than someone who happens to be present: it belongs to a word family for attesting and testimony. Even where no human observer is there, the verse says the conduct between these people is witnessed.
ALSO GROWS
heʿid: To bear witness, testify.
הֵעִיד
This verbal branch shows witness as an act of attesting, not merely a title.
ʿedut: Testimony, witness.
עֵדוּת
This branch gives witnessed conduct a form that can be stated as testimony.
בֵּין
bên
GROWS FROM
ב־י־ן
b-y-n
Between; discern or understand.
“betwixt” in this verse is bên. The word for the space between two people shares its root with words for discernment and understanding. God is named as witness within that space between them, where what happens can be seen and distinguished.
ALSO GROWS
binah: Understanding, discernment.
בִּינָה
This branch links the relational space called “between” with the capacity to discern what is happening there.
mevin: One who understands or discerns.
מֵבִין
The shared root gives the verse’s “between” a shade of discernment, fitting its claim that God witnesses the relationship.
תְּעַנֶּה
teʿanneh
GROWS FROM
ע־נ־ה
ʿ-n-h
Humble, afflict, press down.
“bend low” in this verse is teʿanneh. The warning describes harm as pressing another person down. The same root appears in words for the afflicted person and affliction itself, connecting the act to the condition it creates.
ALSO GROWS
ʿānî: Afflicted, poor, brought low.
עָנִי
This branch names the person made low by the kind of affliction the verse warns against.
ʿŏnî: Affliction, distress.
עֳנִי
This branch names the condition produced by being pressed down, keeping the verse’s harm concrete.
THE PATTERN
When human witnesses are absent, what happens in private remains visible to God.
The eyes of the LORD are in every place, watching the harm and the good.So that your compassion may be in the hidden; and your Father, who sees in the hidden, himself will give it back to you in the open.And no creation is hidden before him, but all things are naked and bared at the throat to the eyes of him to whom our account belongs.THE THREAD
One witness shall not rise up against a man for any crookedness, or for any falling short, in it he misses the mark; upon the mouth of two witnesses, or upon the mouth of three witnesses, the word shall stand.The same Hebrew word עֵד (ʿēd), meaning “witness,” appears in both verses. Genesis names God as witness when no human is present; Deuteronomy shows how human testimony establishes a matter between people.
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