What Does Deuteronomy 25:6 Mean in the King James?
And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel.
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 firstborn does not merely follow the dead brother; he stands in his name, keeping that name present among the living.
THE MEANING
The firstborn carries the dead brother’s name forward, so death and erasure are not treated as the same thing. Here, a name is more than a label: it is an identity held in the living community.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that death by itself makes a person’s name disappear: the verse describes a living child carrying the dead brother’s identity forward.
THE ROOT
יָקוּם
yaqum
GROWS FROM
קום
qum
Rise, stand.
“succeed” in this verse is yaqum. The Hebrew verb adds the image of standing up to the English sense of succeeding to a place: the firstborn stands in the dead brother’s name. That standing is set against the verse’s image of a name being wiped away.
ALSO GROWS
heqim: raise, establish
הֵקִים
This causative form of the root appears in Ruth’s parallel account, where a child raises the dead man’s name.
maqom: place
מָקוֹם
This noun from the same root names a place as a point of standing, echoing the firstborn’s place in his brother’s name.
יִמָּחֶה
yimmāḥeh
GROWS FROM
מחה
machah
Wipe away, blot out.
“put out” in this verse is yimmāḥeh. The verse pictures a name as something that could be wiped from the community’s record. Its concern is not only that the dead brother once existed, but that his identity remains present among Israel.
ALSO GROWS
emcheh: I will wipe out
אֶמְחֶה
The same root describes wiping something away, making the verse’s image of a name being put out concrete.
nimchah: be blotted out
נִמְחָה
This form makes explicit the erasure that the firstborn’s succession prevents.
שֵׁם
shem
GROWS FROM
שם
shem
Name; the identity or nature by which someone is known.
The name here carries the dead brother’s identity into the life of the family and community. The verse treats a name as something that can be carried forward or erased, not as a label detached from the person.
ALSO GROWS
shemō: his name
שְׁמוֹ
This form in the verse makes the dead brother’s identity the thing that the firstborn carries forward.
shemot: names
שֵׁמוֹת
The plural form keeps the focus on names as identities held and remembered within a people.
THE PATTERN
A name remains present when the living carry it forward and keep it from erasure.
The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.Moreover Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren, and from the gate of his place: ye are witnesses this day.He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.THE THREAD
Moreover Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren, and from the gate of his place: ye are witnesses this day.Ruth uses הֵקִים (heqim, raise or establish), from the same root קום (qum, rise or stand) as יָקוּם (yaqum, he will stand) in this verse. The shared verb reveals the mechanism: the living raise the dead man’s name into the community’s future.
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