What Does Deuteronomy 4:25 Mean in the King James?
When thou shalt beget children, and children’s children, and ye shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the LORD thy God, to provoke him to anger:
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 root of “corrupt” is ruin: what you shape and revere can become the instrument of your own undoing.
THE MEANING
A life that feels settled across generations can still turn toward an image made by human hands and ruin itself. The image does not remain external: this turn stands as evil in the sight of the LORD and provokes his anger.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie undone is that a long-established life or inherited place makes a person immune to corruption.
THE ROOT
וְהִשְׁחַתֶּם
ve-hishchatem
GROWS FROM
שחת
To ruin, destroy, or spoil; here, to act corruptly.
The verb carries the force of ruining or destroying, so “corrupt yourselves” depicts a collapse the people bring about within their own life. What is made and revered can become an instrument by which its makers damage themselves.
ALSO GROWS
hishchit: He ruined or corrupted.
הִשְׁחִית
Genesis 6:12 uses this same root for flesh corrupting its way, showing corruption as damage to a whole path of life.
mashchitim: Destroyers or corrupters.
מַשְׁחִיתִים
Isaiah 1:4 uses this root to name people as corrupters, showing ruin as something enacted, not merely suffered.
THE PATTERN
A made image can deform the people who make it until they resemble what their hands shaped.
They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.THE THREAD
And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.The same Hebrew root, שחת (shachat; to ruin or destroy), names a way being ruined and a people ruining themselves. That echo makes the warning concrete: corruption alters the path of life until what is being made destroys its maker.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us