What Does Deuteronomy 9:9 Mean in the King James?
When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which the LORD made with you, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights, I neither did eat bread nor drink water:
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 “made” with a word that means “cut,” giving the bond Moses receives a concrete edge that English hides.
THE MEANING
The covenant that reaches you is named with the language of a cut bond, set in stone. The scene holds that bond alongside a body remaining on the mountain through forty days and nights without bread or water; covenant occupies the whole span while ordinary nourishment is absent.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the idea that covenant is only a phrase or inward sentiment: its language marks a concrete, binding bond.
THE ROOT
כָּרַת
karat
GROWS FROM
כרת
k-r-t
To cut or cut off.
The Hebrew says the LORD “cut” the covenant with you. English “made” hides the tangible image inside the bond: covenant language carries the mark of something cut and binding.
ALSO GROWS
karat: To cut or cut off.
כָּרַת
This verb gives the covenant its concrete image: it is cut, not simply spoken into being.
keritut: A severance or divorce.
כְּרִיתוּת
The same root can name a severing bond, showing how its cutting language marks consequential ties; here it makes covenant’s binding force tangible.
וָאֵשֵׁב
va'eshev
GROWS FROM
ישב
y-sh-v
To sit, dwell, or remain.
“Abode” carries the sense of settling or remaining in a place. The verse’s word for staying on the mountain shares its seed with words for dwelling and settlement, making the long presence part of the covenant scene.
ALSO GROWS
yashav: To sit, dwell, or remain.
יָשַׁב
This is the root verb behind “abode,” emphasizing continued presence rather than a passing visit.
moshav: A dwelling place, seat, or settlement.
מוֹשָׁב
This noun turns the same idea of remaining into a place of dwelling, echoing the mountain as the setting for an extended stay.
לָקַחַת
laqachat
GROWS FROM
לקח
l-q-ḥ
To take, grasp, or receive.
“receive” in this verse is laqachat. The Hebrew for receiving the stone tablets also carries the sense of taking hold. A related word can mean instruction: what is received is something taken in, not merely an object passed across.
ALSO GROWS
laqach: To take or receive.
לָקַח
This is the root verb behind “to receive,” keeping the act concrete: Moses takes hold of the tablets.
leqach: Instruction or teaching.
לֶקַח
The related word for instruction suggests what is received can also be taken in as teaching, fitting the covenant tablets.
THE PATTERN
Covenant is expressed as a concrete bond marked by cutting, blood, or another embodied sign.
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:And I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant which they had made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof,And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many.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:Genesis uses the same Hebrew cut-covenant expression found in Deuteronomy. Read together, the verses let “made” retain the image of a cut bond and show the covenant received on the mountain as part of that same concrete language.
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