What Does Deuteronomy 5:3 Mean in the King James?
The LORD made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.
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 says the LORD “cut” the covenant with the living “us,” making its bond a present act among those alive today.
THE MEANING
You are addressed as a living participant in the covenant, not as a spectator to someone else’s bond. The repeated “with us” places its claim among the people alive today.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The covenant belongs only to the generation that first received it.
THE ROOT
כָּרַת
karat
GROWS FROM
כרת
karat
To cut; to cut off.
The verb translated “made” is literally “cut,” in the Hebrew idiom for making a covenant. The bond is pictured as an enacted act with the people who are alive here today.
ALSO GROWS
karat: To cut; used in the expression “cut a covenant.”
כָּרַת
This is the verb translated “made” here, so the covenant is pictured as an enacted bond with those alive today.
hikhrit: To cut off, remove, or destroy.
הִכְרִית
The same root can name severing, showing the concrete force of cutting that remains beneath the covenant idiom.
keritut: Divorce or dismissal; a document of separation.
כְּרִיתוּת
This branch makes the root’s sense of severance visible alongside its use for a bond enacted with the present “us.”
חַיִּים
chayyim
GROWS FROM
חיה
chayah
To live; to be alive.
“Alive” belongs to the same root family as living and life. The word marks more than when the people are addressed: it names those present to receive the covenant as living participants.
ALSO GROWS
chai: Living; alive.
חַי
This form shares the root behind “alive,” tying the people’s present condition to the language of living.
chayyah: A living creature.
חַיָּה
This branch extends the same root from being alive to a living being, keeping the verse’s emphasis on actual living people.
THE PATTERN
Covenant is an enacted bond that names people as its present participants.
And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD hath made with you concerning all these words.But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.THE THREAD
In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:The same Hebrew verb translated “made” is the verb for “cut” in both verses. Genesis exposes the concrete action beneath the word; Deuteronomy applies that action to the living “us” here today.
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