What Does Deuteronomy 27:4 Mean in the King James?
Therefore it shall be when ye be gone over Jordan, that ye shall set up these stones, which I command you this day, in mount Ebal, and thou shalt plaister them with plaister.
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 word for stone carries a father–son echo, and these stones are made to stand as a lasting surface for the command.
THE MEANING
You are at the crossing where a spoken command takes a durable, visible form: the stones are set upright and coated for inscription. The word moves from voice onto a surface that can remain in view. The father-and-son echo within “stone” makes that witness carry a sense of continuity through generations.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a command exists only in the moment it is heard: here it takes a visible form that can endure.
THE ROOT
הָאֲבָנִים
ha'avanim
GROWS FROM
אבן
Stone; the consonants also invite the letter echo אָב (av, father) + בֵּן (ben, son).
The stone-word can be heard as father and son held together in one form, a lineage echo inside the material witness. Here the stones are set upright and prepared to carry the commanded words into the crossing place.
ALSO GROWS
avanim: The plural form of stone.
אֲבָנִים
The single stone-word becomes a collective witness, set up for the people to encounter.
even pinnah: A stone set at the corner as a structural anchor.
אֶבֶן פִּנָּה
The same stone-word can name what holds a structure in place, echoing how these stones establish a lasting marker.
תָּקִימוּ
taqimu
GROWS FROM
קום
To rise or stand; in a causative form, to raise or establish.
“set up” in this verse is taqimu. The verb makes the stones stand; it describes more than their presence at Ebal. The same root can mean establish, so setting them up also sets the witness in place.
ALSO GROWS
qum: To rise or stand.
קוּם
This is the root’s basic movement, visible in stones made to stand upright.
heqim: To cause to stand; to establish.
הֵקִים
This causative form brings out the establishing force carried by the act of setting up the stones.
THE PATTERN
The word becomes a durable, readable witness, in stone and in the living heart.
And thou shalt write upon the stones all the words of this law very plainly.And the LORD said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that thou mayest teach them.Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.THE THREAD
Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off: and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever.The same Hebrew word אֶבֶן (even, stone) names these memorial stones. Deuteronomy’s stones stand on Ebal after the Jordan crossing; Joshua’s stones make that crossing remembered, linking passage through the waters with a witness that remains.
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