What Does Genesis 38:7 Mean?
And Er, Judah's firstborn, was evil in the eyes of the LORD, and the LORD struck him down.
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 Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD slew him.THE KEY
God’s gaze here is not passive observation: the verse moves from what is evil in his sight straight to God’s act of killing.
THE MEANING
You encounter the judgment without a softening explanation: Er is called wicked in the LORD’s sight, and the LORD slays him. The verse gives no account of the wickedness itself; its severity stands in the open.
THE ROOT
וַיְמִתֵהוּ
waymīṯēhû
GROWS FROM
מות
m-w-t
Die; in the causative form here, cause to die or put to death.
“slew” in this verse is waymīṯēhû. The Hebrew form says the LORD caused Er to die, naming divine agency directly. Its root also appears in words for dying, death, and the dead, keeping the act within that whole field.
ALSO GROWS
mûṯ: To die
מוּת
The basic verb names the death that the causative form here brings about.
māveṯ: Death
מָוֶת
The noun shows the wider field of death carried by the verb.
mēṯ: Dead; a dead person
מֵת
This form names the state that follows the action in the verse.
רַע
raʿ
GROWS FROM
רעע
r-ʿ-ʿ
Be evil or bad; act harmfully.
“was evil in the eyes of the LORD” in this verse is raʿ. The word names evil as what is seen by the LORD, while the verse leaves the particular deed unnamed. The same root can name evil as a condition or describe acting wickedly, connecting what Er is called with what is done.
ALSO GROWS
raʿat: Wickedness, evil
רָעַת
This form appears in Genesis 6:5, where GOD sees humanity’s wickedness.
rōaʿ: Badness, evil, harm
רֹעַ
This noun branch presents evil as harm or badness, not only as a label for a person.
hērēaʿ: To do evil; to act wickedly
הֵרֵעַ
This verb makes explicit the harmful action that the verse leaves unspecified.
THE PATTERN
In scripture, divine sight of evil leads to judgment rather than detached observation.
And the LORD saw that the harm of humankind was great in the earth, and that every shaping of the thoughts of his heart was only harm all the day.The face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to cut off their memory from the earth.Who will give back to each one according to his works.THE THREAD
And the LORD saw that the harm of humankind was great in the earth, and that every shaping of the thoughts of his heart was only harm all the day.The Hebrew רָעַת (raʿat, “wickedness”) in Genesis 6:5 comes from the same רעע (r-ʿ-ʿ) root as Er’s רַע (raʿ, “wicked”). Both verses place this evil before GOD’s sight; one names it in Er, the other across humanity.
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