What Does Deuteronomy 32:7 Mean in the King James?
Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.
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 past is not a dead archive here: memory becomes present when it turns into a question and elders answer.
THE MEANING
Your present can receive perspective from a memory you did not create alone: you remember, discern the generations, and ask those who can tell. The past reaches you through living voices, making wisdom something shared across time.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that you must make sense of life entirely from your own brief stretch of years.
THE ROOT
זְכֹר
zekhor
GROWS FROM
ז־כ־ר
z-k-r
Remember, recall, or mention.
This root’s branches include both inward recollection and making remembrance known. The verse moves memory from the mind into speech: you remember, ask, and receive an answer.
ALSO GROWS
zikkaron: Memorial, remembrance.
זִכָּרוֹן
A memorial keeps remembrance present; here, memory is carried forward through the elders’ answer.
hizkir: Mention, bring to remembrance.
הִזְכִּיר
This branch makes memory speakable, echoing the verse’s movement from remembering to asking and telling.
בִּינוּ
binu
GROWS FROM
ב־י־ן
b-y-n
Discern, distinguish, understand.
“Consider” in this verse is binu. The command is to understand the years, not merely count them. The root’s connection with “between” suggests discerning what becomes visible across the span of generations.
ALSO GROWS
binah: Understanding, discernment.
בִּינָה
It names the insight the verse calls for when you consider generations.
bein: Between, among.
בֵּין
It evokes the space across generations where inherited experience can be discerned.
וְיַגֵּדְךָ
veyaggedkha
GROWS FROM
נ־ג־ד
n-g-d
Declare or make known; the related form can mean what is before or in front of someone.
“Shew” in this verse is veyaggedkha. The elder makes the years known by telling them. Speech brings inherited knowledge into view, placing it before you as testimony.
ALSO GROWS
maggid: One who tells or declares.
מַגִּיד
The elder’s role is carried in the word’s sense of making something known through speech.
neged: Before, in front of, opposite.
נֶגֶד
This related form gives a spatial echo: what is told is brought before the listener.
THE PATTERN
Wisdom travels through generations when what has been received is told onward.
We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done.One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts.And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.THE THREAD
I will remember the works of the LORD: surely I will remember thy wonders of old.The same זכר (z-k-r, remember or recall) root appears here, joining the remembering of God’s works to Deuteronomy’s “days of old.” Deuteronomy shows how that memory travels: it becomes something asked about and told across generations.
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