What Does Deuteronomy 17:7 Mean in the King James?
The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So thou shalt put the evil away from among you.
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
The witnesses’ hands begin the killing, so the people who establish the death claim are physically implicated in its execution.
THE MEANING
The witnesses act first, and then all the people follow: the verse assigns this execution to the community in stages. It calls the killing the removal of evil from among the people, naming death as the means of that removal.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that witnesses stand outside the punishment they validate: their hands are first, and the people’s hands follow.
THE ROOT
וּבִעַרְתָּ
uvi'arta
GROWS FROM
ב־ע־ר
b-ʿ-r
Burn or consume; in this verb form, purge or remove.
The verb behind “put away” also describes burning or consuming. Its use for purging evil carries a force sharper than quiet dismissal: the verse names the removal as an execution carried out by witnesses and the people.
ALSO GROWS
bo'er: Burning
בֹּעֵר
Exodus 3:2 uses this form for the bush that is burning; this branch brings the root’s consuming force into view beside the command to purge.
uvi'arta: You shall purge or remove
וּבִעַרְתָּ
Deuteronomy 13:5 uses the same form in the command to put evil away, linking the phrase to an act that the verse’s surrounding words specify as death.
הָעֵדִים
ha'edim
GROWS FROM
עוּד
ʿ-w-d
Testify, attest, bear witness.
The Hebrew word for witnesses belongs to a family of words for testifying and attesting. Here, testimony is bound to physical action: the witnesses are not detached observers but the first to lay hands in the execution.
ALSO GROWS
ʿed: Witness
עֵד
This singular form names a person who bears testimony; in this verse, the witnesses’ role extends from testimony to the first physical act.
he'id: Testify or attest
הֵעִיד
This verb makes explicit the act behind the witness’s role, which this verse joins to the community’s lethal judgment.
THE PATTERN
When testimony authorizes lethal judgment, witnesses appear as participants in its public enactment.
But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul.And there came in two men, children of Belial, and sat before him: and the men of Belial witnessed against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, Naboth did blaspheme God and the king. Then they carried him forth out of the city, and stoned him with stones, that he died.THE THREAD
And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.The same Hebrew verb, וּבִעַרְתָּ (uvi’arta), meaning “you shall purge or remove,” closes both verses. Here, the phrase’s physical force is explicit: removal is carried out through the witnesses’ hands and the people’s hands, ending in death.
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