Deuteronomy7:1–11

Where the English smooths the original

• וְנָשַׁל BSB's smooth “He drives out” renders wə·nā·šal (H5394), a verb whose root nâshal means literally to pluck or slip off — the same word used of the sandal slipping from the foot (Exodus 3:5) and the axe-head flying off the heft (Deuteronomy 19:5). Cambridge notes this is one of the “only applications of this verb to the extirpation of human beings”; Keil & Delitzsch gloss it “to draw out, to cast away.” The dispossession is pictured as God flicking the nations off the land like a loosened thong.
• גּוֹיִם The nations are gō·w·yim (H1471, gôwy) — the standard word for foreign nations, the goyim, set against Israel who is never gôwy here but, in v.6, ʻam (a covenant people). BSB's flat “nations” loses the deliberate contrast the chapter is building between the seven heathen gôyim and the one chosen ʻam.
• שִׁבְעָה šiḇ·‘āh (H7651), “seven,” is the “sacred full” number. Ellicott, Benson, JFB and the Pulpit Commentary all observe that Genesis 15:19–21 lists ten nations; here the roster is rounded to the complete, covenantal seven — a literary totality (“the full complement of the land's peoples”) more than a census.

Where the English smooths the original

• הַחֲרֵם תַּחֲרִים BSB's “devote them to complete destruction” renders the Hebrew's doubled infinitive-plus-finite verb, ha·ḥă·rêm ta·ḥă·rîm (H2763, châram) — literally “banning you shall ban them.” The Hebrew piles the same root on itself for absolute emphasis; the noun-form is ḥêrem, “the ban.” Ellicott names it exactly: “shalt make them chêrem, a devoted or accursed thing.” The word is not mere killing but consecrated destruction — a thing handed over wholly to God and so withdrawn from human use.
• תִכְרֹת “Make no treaty” is ṯiḵ·rōṯ (H3772, kârath), “to cut.” A covenant in Hebrew is something one cuts — the idiom recalls the slain animals between whose pieces the parties pass (cf. bᵉrîyth, H1285, “a compact… made by passing between pieces of flesh”). BSB's “make” erases the knife in the metaphor; Israel is told not to cut a cutting with them.
• תְחָנֵּם “Show them no mercy” is ṯə·ḥān·nêm (H2603, chânan), whose root means “to bend or stoop in kindness to an inferior,” to show favor / be gracious. The prohibition is not against pity in the abstract but against the patron's downward grace that would let them remain — the very grace God will show Israel in vv.7–8 is the thing Israel must not extend to the ḥêrem.

Where the English smooths the original

• תִתְחַתֵּן BSB's “intermarry” renders ṯiṯ·ḥat·tên (H2859, châthan) in the Hitpael — a reflexive that means to make oneself a son-in-law / kinsman-by-marriage, to enter the in-law bond. The root châthan is the word behind chôthên (father-in-law) and chāthān (bridegroom). The danger named is not romance but affinity — being absorbed into a heathen family network.
• תִתֵּן … תִקַּח The verse is built on a giving-and-taking pair: ṯit·tên (H5414, nâthan, “give”) your daughter, and ṯiq·qaḥ (H3947, lâqach, “take”) his daughter. The chiastic “give… take” covers the marriage exchange in both directions; BSB renders it well, but the bare verbs underline that this is the ordinary language of arranging matches, here forbidden across the covenant line.

Where the English smooths the original

• יָסִיר BSB's “they will turn your sons away” renders a Hebrew that is singular: yā·sîr (H5493, çûwr, Hiphil), “he will turn aside.” Keil & Delitzsch read it pointedly: “for he (the Canaanite) will cause thy son to turn away from behind me.” Gill notes Jarchi's view that the heathen father-in-law turns the grandchild aside. The singular subject sharpens the warning to the individual idolatrous spouse, not a vague “they.”
• מֵאַחֲרַי “From following Me” is mê·’a·ḥă·ray (H310, ʼachar) — literally “from after Me,” the picture of a servant or soldier walking behind his lord. Pulpit: “from being my servant and worshipper.” Strikingly the speaker is Moses, yet the pronoun is “Me”; Cambridge calls this “the merging of the speaker's personality in that of the Deity, for whom he speaks” — the prophet's mouth and God's voice fused.
• מַהֵר BSB's “swiftly” is ma·hêr (H4118, root mâhar, “to hurry”) used adverbially. Pulpit corrects the older “suddenly” to “speedily.” The judgment is not pictured as a surprise but as a fast one — God will not let the apostasy run; the destruction comes without the delay He elsewhere grants (contrast v.10, “He will not delay”).

Where the English smooths the original

• תִּתֹּצוּ … תְּשַׁבֵּרוּ … תְּגַדֵּעוּן … תִּשְׂרְפוּן BSB strings four verbs in even prose, but the Hebrew is a hammering escalation of distinct destructions, each verb chosen for its object: tit·tō·ṣū (H5422, nâthats, “pull/tear down” the altars), tə·šab·bê·rū (H7665, shâbar, “shatter / burst” the stone pillars), tə·ḡad·dê·‘ūn (H1438, gâdaʻ, “hew / fell,” as a tree, the wooden Asherim), and tiś·rə·p̄ūn (H8313, sâraph, “burn” the images). Demolish, smash, chop, incinerate — four trades of total iconoclasm.
• וַאֲשֵׁירֵהֶם “Their Asherah poles” is wa·’ă·šê·rê·hem (H842, ʼăshêrâh), the cult-pole of “Asherah (or Astarte), a Phoenician goddess.” Barnes renders it “their idols of wood… the wooden trunk used as a representation of Ashtaroth.” It is hewn down because, unlike stone, it is felled like the living tree it imitates.
• וּפְסִילֵיהֶם “Their idols” is ū·p̄ə·sî·lê·hem (H6456, pᵉçîyl), specifically carved / graven images — the word carries the chisel in it (from pâsal, to hew). BSB's generic “idols” loses that these are sculpted things; that is why fire, not just the hammer, is appointed for them.

Where the English smooths the original

• עַם קָדוֹשׁ “A people holy” is ‘am qā·ḏō·wōš (H5971 + H6918). Ellicott presses the precise word: not merely “a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6) but “a holy people — a state of which holiness to Jehovah was the very constitution.” The root qādash means “to cut off, set apart”; Cambridge notes that in Deuteronomy holy is chiefly “separated unto… reserved for Jehovah,” with the ethical sense following from the separation.
• סְגֻלָּה “Prized possession” is sə·ḡul·lāh (H5459) — a genuinely rare word (8 verses), meaning private, locked-up treasure. Ellicott and Pulpit link it to the “peculiar treasure” of Exodus 19:5 and the “jewels” of Malachi 3:17, and to David's “mine own proper good” (1 Chronicles 29:3). Israel is the LORD's personal hoard, not merely a possession but a crown-treasure set aside from the common.
• הָאֲדָמָה “The earth” is hā·’ă·ḏā·māh (H127, ʼădâmâh) — the ground / soil, “from its general redness,” the same word as in ʼādām. “Out of all the peoples on the face of the ground” reaches back to the dust of humanity itself: from all earth-born peoples, this one is drawn out as treasure.

Where the English smooths the original

• חָשַׁק BSB's “set His affection” renders ḥā·šaq (H2836, châshaq), whose root means “to cling, be attached.” Keil & Delitzsch: “to bind oneself with, to hang upon a person, out of love.” Cambridge and Pulpit note the same verb is used of a man falling in love with a woman (Deuteronomy 21:11; Genesis 34:8). God's election is cast as ardent attachment, a holding-fast, not a cool administrative selection.
• הַמְעַט “The fewest” is ham·‘aṭ (H4592, mᵉʻaṭ), “a little / few.” Keil renders it starkly “the littleness of all nations.” The verse undercuts every motive of national pride: Israel was chosen not for greatness but in spite of being the smallest — a point Benson and Poole trace back to the single childless Abraham.

Where the English smooths the original

• מֵאַהֲבַת “Because the LORD loved you” translates a Hebrew that is causal and nominal: mê·’a·hă·ḇaṯ (H160, ʼahăbâh), “out of the love of the LORD.” The reason for election is, with deliberate circularity, simply love itself. Gill: “he loved them, because he loved them.” Geneva's margin: “Freely, finding no cause in you more than in others.” The ground of the choice is God's own affection, not anything in Israel.
• וַיִּפְדְּךָ BSB's “redeemed you” is way·yip̄·də·ḵā (H6299, pâdâh), whose root means “to sever” — the ordinary term, says Cambridge, “for ransoming beast or man from slavery or death” (cf. Exodus 13:13). The exodus is framed as a price-paid release, a ransom out of bondage, not merely a rescue — a word that the New Testament will fill with Christ's blood.
• מִבֵּית עֲבָדִים “From the house of slavery” is mib·bêṯ ‘ă·ḇā·dîm (H1004 + H5650), literally the “house of slaves / bondmen.” ʻebed is the slave; the phrase is the standing Deuteronomic name for Egypt (the same words anchor the Decalogue's preface, Exodus 20:2). The redeemed are defined by where they were ransomed from — a slave-house.

Where the English smooths the original

• הַנֶּאֱמָן “The faithful God” is han·ne·’ĕ·mān (H539, ʼâman), whose root means “to build up, support” — the word behind amen. Maclaren draws out the picture: faithful means “something that can be leant on, or builded on… trustworthy, and that because rigidly observant of obligations.” God is the One who can bear the full weight of a covenant placed on Him.
• וְהַחֶסֶד “His covenant of loving devotion” renders two nouns, hab·bə·rîṯ wə·ha·ḥe·seḏ — the covenant and the ḥesed (H2617, chêçêd), “kindness, steadfast love.” Chesed is covenant-loyalty, the loyal love that keeps faith with the bond. BSB folds the two into one phrase; the Hebrew names them as a pair — the covenant and the covenant-faithfulness that animates it.
• לְאֶלֶף דּוֹר “For a thousand generations” is lə·’e·lep̄ dō·wr (H505 + H1755). Pulpit renders it “to the thousandth generation.” Ellicott sees the Decalogue's “thousands of them that love Him” (Exodus 20:6) here “expanded into a thousand generations” — mercy outrunning the “third and fourth generation” of judgment by an almost unmeasurable span.

Where the English smooths the original

• וּמְשַׁלֵּם “He repays” is ū·mə·šal·lêm (H7999, shâlam), the Piel of the root that means “to be whole / at peace,” here “to make complete, requite, pay in full.” The same root underlies shâlôm. Retribution is pictured not as rage but as a settling of accounts — God pays the hater in full what is owed.
• אֶל־פָּנָיו “To their faces” is ’el-pā·nāw (H413 + H6440). The phrase is disputed: Pulpit surveys the readings — instantly, openly, during life, in their presence — and settles on “in their own sight,” so that “the man should himself see and feel that he had been smitten of God.” Barnes: “punishes His enemies in their own proper persons.” The point of v.10 against v.9's thousand generations: the hater is paid personally, not across deferred generations.
• לֹא יְאַחֵר “He will not hesitate” is lō yə·’a·ḥêr (H309, ʼâchar), “to loiter, delay.” Cambridge corrects “slack” to “he will not delay (it).” Poole guards it: not slack “so as some men count slackness” (2 Peter 3:9) — “yet withal he is long-suffering, and slow to anger.” The non-delay is judicial certainty, not impatience.

Where the English smooths the original

• וְשָׁמַרְתָּ “So keep” is wə·šā·mar·tā (H8104, shâmar) — the same verb that described God in v.9 “who keeps His covenant.” The command is shaped to echo the character: the covenant-keeping God calls a covenant-keeping people. Keil: this very “energy of the grace and holiness of the faithful covenant God was a powerful admonition to keep the divine commandments.”
• הַמִּצְוָה … הַחֻקִּים … הַמִּשְׁפָּטִים The three law-words: ham·miṣ·wāh (H4687, mitsvâh, the commandment), ha·ḥuq·qîm (H2706, chôq, statutes — “an enactment, something engraved”), and ham·miš·pā·ṭîm (H4941, mishpâṭ, ordinances — a “verdict pronounced judicially”). BSB's “commandments, statutes, ordinances” is accurate but level; the Hebrew distinguishes the engraved decree from the judicial sentence from the overarching charge.