What Does Deuteronomy 31:1 Mean in the King James?
And Moses went and spake these words unto all 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 Hebrew root for “spake” and “words” is the same, while Moses’ name means “drawn out”: the one drawn out becomes a voice extending to all Israel.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you as a voice moving toward the whole people: Moses goes, speaks, and the words enter Israel’s shared space. His name carries the sense of “drawn out,” and the Hebrew joins the act of speaking to the words themselves. What is carried outward through one voice reaches the whole community.
THE ROOT
דִּבֶּר
dibber
GROWS FROM
ד־ב־ר
Speak; an utterance or matter.
“spake / words” in this verse is dibber. The Hebrew uses the same root for Moses’ act of speaking and for the words he speaks. The action and its content echo as one family: the words are speech taking form.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: spoke
דִּבֶּר
This is the verb describing what Moses does.
davar: word; matter
דָּבָר
The singular noun shares the root of the verb “spake.”
devarim: words
דְּבָרִים
The plural in the verse makes the shared root audible in both the speaking and what is spoken.
מֹשֶׁה
Mosheh
GROWS FROM
מ־שׁ־ה
Draw out.
Moses’ name carries the meaning “drawn out,” linked in Exodus 2:10 to being drawn out of the water. Here the one named as drawn out goes forth to speak, and his voice extends to all Israel.
ALSO GROWS
mashah: to draw out
מָשָׁה
This verb is the root connected to Moses’ name.
Mosheh: Moses; the one drawn out
מֹשֶׁה
The name carries the root’s image into the verse’s speaker.
THE PATTERN
A word becomes communal when a voice carries it to the people who receive it.
And thou shalt speak unto him, and put words in his mouth: and I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what ye shall do.For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.THE THREAD
And thou shalt speak unto him, and put words in his mouth: and I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what ye shall do.The Hebrew forms for “speak” and “words” both grow from ד־ב־ר (d-b-r, speak; utterance or matter), as they do in Deuteronomy 31:1. Here the words are put in a mouth, showing speech taking form through a voice and moving toward another.
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