What Does Nehemiah 5:13 Mean?
I also shook out my lap, and I said, So God shake out every man from his house and from his toil, who does not make this word stand. Even so, let him be shaken out, and emptied. And all the assembly said, Amen, and praised the LORD. And the people did according to this word.
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
Also I shook my lap, and said, So God shake out every man from his house, and from his labour, that performeth not this promise, even thus be he shaken out, and emptied. And all the congregation said, Amen, and praised the LORD. And the people did according to this promise.THE KEY
The verse turns a broken promise into a physical image: what is not made to stand gets shaken loose from home and livelihood.
THE MEANING
A promise carries weight now: when its word is not upheld, the promise-breaker is pictured as shaken from house and labor, left empty. The congregation says “Amen,” praises the LORD, and then acts according to the word; agreement becomes visible in what the people do.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that verbal agreement or praise by itself completes a promise; the people’s action is the verse’s final measure.
THE ROOT
יָקִים
yaqim
GROWS FROM
קום
Rise, stand, or cause to stand.
“does not make this word stand” in this verse is yaqim. The word translated “performeth” carries the sense of making the word stand. The verse sets that against the person being shaken out: the commitment is either upheld, or the one who will not uphold it faces removal from home and livelihood.
ALSO GROWS
qum: Rise; stand.
קוּם
The basic action behind “establish” shows a promise as something made to stand.
heqim: Raise; establish.
הֵקִים
This causative form makes the link between standing and carrying a commitment through.
נָעַרְתִּי
naʿarti
GROWS FROM
נער
Shake, shake off, or shake out.
“shook out my lap” in this verse is naʿarti. The same root describes Nehemiah shaking his garment, God shaking out the one who breaks the pledge, and that person being shaken out. English repeats the image, but the Hebrew ties the gesture and its consequence together with one verb.
ALSO GROWS
yenaʿer: He will shake out.
יְנַעֵר
This is the same root in the warning, so the gesture becomes the image of what follows.
naʿur: Shaken out.
נָעוּר
This form describes the person’s removal with the same root as the initial shaking.
הַדָּבָר
ha-davar
GROWS FROM
דבר
Speak; word, matter, or thing.
Where KJV says “promise,” the Hebrew says “this word” or “this matter.” Joined to the root for “establish,” the spoken commitment is something meant to stand in the world, with consequences for house and labor.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word; matter; thing.
דָּבָר
The pledge is named as a word or matter, joining speech to what happens materially.
dibber: He spoke.
דִּבֵּר
This verbal form shares the root and connects the pledged word to the act of speaking it.
THE PATTERN
A spoken commitment gains substance when it is upheld in action.
What has gone out of your lips you shall guard and do, even a willing offering, according as you have vowed to the LORD your God, which you have spoken with your mouth.Why do you call me, Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say?So also trust, if it has no works, is dead, by itself.THE THREAD
That it might grip the wings of the earth, and the restless be shaken out of it?Job uses the same נ־ע־ר root for the wicked being shaken off the earth. That shared verb opens Nehemiah’s gesture as a concrete image of removal: a person can be shaken loose from the place that holds them.
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