What Does Deuteronomy 18:12 Mean in the King James?

For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.

Deuteronomy 18:12 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The verb that says the LORD drives them out grows from the same root that says Israel possesses the land: inheritance and expulsion are one motion.

THE MEANING

You are confronted with judgment enacted as expulsion: the LORD drives people from their place over practices this verse names abhorrent. The sentence ties judgment to material displacement and does not soften the violence of being driven out.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

This undoes the belief that a practice promising hidden knowledge can be morally neutral.

THE ROOT

מוֹרִישׁ

morish

GROWS FROM

יָרַשׁ

yarash

To take possession or inherit; in the causative form, to dispossess or drive out.

“doth drive them out” in this verse is morish. The verb here describes causing people to lose possession, to be dispossessed. In verse 14, the same root describes possessing the land, placing taking possession and expulsion inside one root family.

ALSO GROWS

yarash: To take possession, inherit.

יָרַשׁ

In Deuteronomy 18:14, this root describes the land Israel possesses, linking that possession to the dispossession named here.

morish: Causing someone to be dispossessed; driving out.

מוֹרִישׁ

This is the form used in the verse: the LORD is the one causing the inhabitants to lose their place.

תּוֹעֲבַת

toʿavat

GROWS FROM

תעב

To abhor or regard as detestable.

“abomination” in this verse is toʿavat. The word belongs to the language of abhorrence: these acts are presented as detestable in the LORD’s judgment, not merely unfamiliar. The verse repeats the noun in plural, gathering the practices into the stated grounds for removal.

ALSO GROWS

toʿevah: A detestable thing; an abomination.

תּוֹעֵבָה

This noun names an act as the object of abhorrence, giving the verse’s judgment its force.

wayteʿev: He abhorred; he regarded as detestable.

וַיְתָעֵב

This verb form appears in Psalm 106:40, showing the same root can name the act of abhorring as well as the thing called detestable.

THE PATTERN

Practices carry consequences that can bring judgment and displacement.

And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.

Leviticus 18:25 · KJVThe land’s expulsion of its inhabitants makes the consequence of their practices as concrete as the removal described here.

Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

Romans 1:24 · KJVHere too, judgment takes the form of people being given over to the consequences of what they enact.

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

Galatians 6:7 · KJVThe harvest image states the same pattern: what people put into action returns as consequence.

THE THREAD

For these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners: but as for thee, the LORD thy God hath not suffered thee so to do.

Deuteronomy 18:14 · KJV

The same root ⁨יָרַשׁ⁩ (yarash, possess or dispossess) stands behind “drive them out” here and “possess” there. The paired forms make possession inseparable from displacement: one people’s taking a place means another people is driven from it.

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