What Does Micah 5:13 Mean?
And I will cut off your hewn images and your standing stones from your midst, and you will no longer bow down to the work of your hands.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Thy graven images also will I cut off, and thy standing images out of the midst of thee; and thou shalt no more worship the work of thine hands.THE KEY
The thing your hands shape and place at the center loses its claim on your bow when it is removed.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you with a promise: what you have raised to the center is cut away, and your bow to your own making ends. The removal clears the place where devotion had been fixed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that something can claim your deepest allegiance simply because your own hands made it.
THE ROOT
פְּסִילֶיךָ
pesilekha
GROWS FROM
פ־ס־ל
p-s-l
To carve or hew into shape.
“hewn images” in this verse is pesilekha. English gives you an object, “graven images,” while Hebrew keeps the act of making inside its name: פֶּסֶל (pesel) is a carved thing, from פָּסַל (pasal), to carve. The verse places the hand’s making and the hand’s devotion in one frame: the carved thing leaves the center, and the bow to it ends.
ALSO GROWS
pasal: To carve or hew.
פָּסַל
The verb names the shaping that produces the carved object in the verse.
pesel: A carved image.
פֶּסֶל
The noun names the made object whose place in the midst is ended.
תִּשְׁתַּחֲוֶה
tishtachaveh
GROWS FROM
שחה
sh-ch-h
To bow down or prostrate oneself.
“bow down” in this verse is tishtachaveh. The word rendered “worship” names a body bowing down. The verse joins the removal of the image to the end of that posture, making devotion visible as an orientation rather than an abstraction.
ALSO GROWS
shachah: To bow down or prostrate oneself.
שָׁחָה
This verbal form carries the root’s physical posture into the verse’s act of worship.
hishtachavah: To bow down or prostrate oneself.
הִשְׁתַּחֲוָה
This related form uses the same root for the posture directed toward an object of devotion.
וּמַצֵּבוֹתֶיךָ
u-matsevotekha
GROWS FROM
נ־צ־ב
n-ts-b
To stand or be stationed.
“standing stones” in this verse is u-matsevotekha. The word names pillars set upright among the people. Beside the carved images, it shows both what is shaped and what is installed in the center being removed.
ALSO GROWS
natsav: To stand or be stationed.
נָצַב
The verb supplies the sense of being set upright that appears in the pillar’s name.
nitsav: Standing or stationed.
נִצָּב
This related form makes the image’s upright, placed position explicit.
THE PATTERN
When a made thing takes the place of its maker, scripture exposes the misdirected devotion and removes the made thing’s claim to the center.
You shall not make for yourself a hewn image, or any shape of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters under the earth.Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and bowed down and served the creation beside the one who created, who is praised for the ages. Amen.THE THREAD
You shall not make for yourself a hewn image, or any shape of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters under the earth.“Graven image” is פֶּסֶל (pesel), a carved image, from פ־ס־ל (p-s-l), the root for carving; Micah uses this same word-family for what is removed from your midst. Exodus names the making, while Micah shows the removal and the end of the bow.
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