What Does Deuteronomy 17:13 Mean in the King James?
And all the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
Here, hearing is the first step in a chain: the whole community hears the judgment, fears, and stops repeating the defiance.
THE MEANING
The whole community hears the consequence of defying the ruling and feels fear; the sentence immediately before this verse is death. The verse shows that a public judgment reaches beyond the person who acts presumptuously and interrupts repetition.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that defiance affects only the person who acts: its consequences reach the whole community.
THE ROOT
יִשְׁמְעוּ
yishme'u
GROWS FROM
שמע
To hear, heed, or respond.
The root holds hearing and response together. In this verse, the people do not merely receive information: what they hear changes what the community does next.
ALSO GROWS
shema: Hear; heed and respond.
שְׁמַע
This branch makes the verse’s hearing active: the warning is taken in and answered by restraint.
shemu'ah: A report or something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
The judgment becomes a report the people hear, carrying its consequence through the community.
יְזִידוּן
yezidun
GROWS FROM
זוד
To act arrogantly or presumptuously; the root also carries the sense of boiling or seething.
“presumptuously” in this verse is yezidun. Presumptuous action carries the image of a will boiling over its boundary. The verse says that this defiance does not continue after the people hear the judgment.
ALSO GROWS
zed: An arrogant or insolent person.
זֵד
This names the kind of self-assertion that the verse says the community will no longer repeat.
zadon: Arrogance or presumption.
זָדוֹן
This noun shows that the root describes a posture of defiance, not merely an accidental mistake.
וְיִרָאוּ
veyira'u
GROWS FROM
ירא
To fear or stand in awe; here, fear in response to danger and judgment.
The verse names fear plainly: the community hears the consequence and is afraid. That fear sits between hearing and the cessation of further presumption.
ALSO GROWS
yir'ah: Fear or awe.
יִרְאָה
This noun names the response the verse places after the community hears.
yare: One who fears; fearful.
יָרֵא
This form shows fear as a state of the people, not an abstract idea.
THE PATTERN
When defiance receives a public judgment, the community hears, fears, and stops repeating it.
And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you.And those which remain shall hear, and fear, and shall henceforth commit no more any such evil among you.And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things.THE THREAD
And those which remain shall hear, and fear, and shall henceforth commit no more any such evil among you.Its “shall hear” repeats the root שמע (shama, hear and respond) and closely echoes this verse’s sequence of hearing, fear, and stopping. The shared root makes hearing part of the change in communal conduct.
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