What Does Deuteronomy 29:14 Mean in the King James?

Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath;

Deuteronomy 29:14 · 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.

THE KEY

The covenant is spoken to you without being confined to you.

THE MEANING

The covenant and oath address you, but their reach does not stop with you. They extend beyond the people gathered here, so who is present now does not set the boundary of the covenant.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

This undoes the belief that the covenant belongs only to the people physically present when it is spoken.

THE ROOT

כֹּרֵת בְּרִית

kōrēt berit

GROWS FROM

כרת

to cut, cut down, or cut off

“make this covenant” in this verse is kōrēt berit. The Hebrew phrase for “make a covenant” uses the verb for cutting, keeping the covenant tied to a concrete act. That language sits beside a wider claim: this oath is not confined to those physically present.

ALSO GROWS

karat: to cut or cut down

כָּרַת

The verb beneath “make” retains the image of a decisive action beneath the covenant phrase.

karat berit: to cut a covenant

כָּרַת בְּרִית

This Hebrew expression shows that covenant-making is spoken of as a cutting, a binding act whose reach the verse then extends beyond the gathered people.

THE PATTERN

A covenant’s reach can extend beyond the people who are present when it is spoken.

And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.

Genesis 17:7 · KJVThe covenant spoken to Abraham reaches forward to his descendants and their generations.

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

Hebrews 8:10 · KJVThe covenant addresses a people across generations through what is placed within them.

THE THREAD

But with him that standeth here with us this day before the LORD our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day:

Deuteronomy 29:15 · KJV

The next verse names the people beyond the gathering: those who are not present that day. It opens “not with you only” into a covenant whose reach includes the absent.

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