Deuteronomy 28:14 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Deuteronomy 28:14
And thou shalt not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.
gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural absolute
serve
לְעָבְדָֽםle.'a.ve.Dam
H5647
to work (in any sense) · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Deuteronomy 5:32 Ye shall observe to do therefore as the LORD your God hath commanded you: ye shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.
Isaiah 30:21 And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to th…
Deuteronomy 11:16 Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them;
Proverbs 4:26-27 Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established.
2 Kings 22:2 And he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, and walked in all the way of David his father, and turned not aside to the right h…
Joshua 23:6 Be ye therefore very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, that ye turn not aside therefrom to t…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Deuteronomy 28:1-14
The blessings are here put before the curses, to intimate, 1. That God is slow to anger, but swift to show mercy: he has said it, and sworn, that he would much rather we would obey and live than sin and die. It is his delight to bless. 2. That though both the promises and the threatenings are designed to bring and hold us to our duty, yet it is better that we be allured to that which is good by a filial hope of God's favour than that we be frightened to it by a servile fear of his wrath. That obedience pleases best which comes from a principle of delight in God's goodness. Now,
I. We have here the conditions upon which the blessing is promised. 1. It is upon condition that they diligently he…
the head, and not the tail--an Oriental form of expression, indicating the possession of independent power and great dignity and acknowledged excellence (Isa 9:14; Isa 19:15).
John Gill on Deuteronomy 28:14
And thou shall not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day,.... Depart from them as a rule to walk by, turn out from them as a path to walk in, neglect and disobey them, and go into practices contrary to them: turning
to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them; which to do was to break the first and principal table of the law, than which nothing was more abominable and provoking to God.
John Calvin on Deuteronomy 28:1-14
Deuteronomy 28:1-14
1. And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth:
1. Et erit, si audiendo audieris vocem Jehovae Dei tui, ut custodias ad faciendum omnia praecepta ejus quae ego paecipio tibi hodie: tunc constituet to Jehova Deus tuus superiorem onmibus gentibus terrae.
2. And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God.
2. Et venient super to omnes benedictiones istae, apprehendentque te, si modo obedieris voci Jehov…
The Church Fathers
You will not turn away from any commandment that I command you today going to the right or to the left behind other gods to serve them. It may be asked how it could be interpreted that it goes to the right who goes after other gods to serve them, when the right is praised, and, on the other hand, the worship of the gods could never be considered worthy of it? Although those who lean to the right are also reprimanded in the path of life, however, in this text they do not criticize the things that are on the right, but those who lean to the right, that is, the one who arrogate what is of God. That is why it is said in the Proverbs: Do not deviate to the right or to the left, because the paths to the right are known by the Lord; however, those on the left are perverse. Therefore, the right that the Lord knows is good, for the Lord knows the ways of the just, (Ps. 1,6) as the psalm reads. The reason why it is said do not deviate to the right, it is explained with what is added next: For he will make your ways straight. God forbid I deny that the right hand known by the Lord is not right, but, as I said, to turn towards it is not to bow to the grace of God, but to want to attribute to oneself what is right. Finally, as I said, he adds and says: He himself will make your paths straight and all your travels will carry them forward in peace (Pv 4,27). Therefore, what is said in this place of Deuteronomy that we are dealing with: You will not turn away from any commandment that I give you today to go to the right or to the left after other gods to serve them, it has not been said because the gods others can also be taken as the right; but they have meant earthly places, because the Gentiles who worshiped other gods had them on the right and on the left; or this must be read separately from the other gods, so that the phrase has two senses, one of which would be this: You will not depart from any commandment that I give you today to the right or to the left, understood naturally according to what I explained above. Another meaning would be: Going after other gods to serve them, so that you also understand here: You will not turn away from any commandment that I give you today. If we wanted to express all this sense, we should repeat the previous terms, which are common to both directions, so that, as it is said: You will not turn away from any commandment that I give…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Heathen — (Heb. plural goyum). At first the word goyim denoted generally all the nations of the world (Gen. 18:18; comp. Gal. 3:8). The Jews afterwards became a people distinguished in a marked manner from the…
Jerusalem — Called also Salem, Ariel, Jebus, the “city of God,” the “holy city;” by the modern Arabs el-Khuds, meaning “the holy;” once “the city of Judah” (2 Chr. 25:28). This name is in the original in the…
Blessing · RESPONSIVE BLESSINGS OF THE LAW — RESPONSIVE BLESSINGS OF THE LAW
Obedience · ENJOINED — ENJOINED
Obedience To God · Should be: Undeviating — Should be: Undeviating
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
For the purpose of impressing upon the hearts of all the people in the most emphatic manner both the blessing which Israel was to proclaim upon Gerizim, and the curse which it was to proclaim upon Ebal, Moses now unfolds the blessing of fidelity to the law and the curse of transgression in a longer address, in which he once more resumes, sums up, and expands still further the promises and threats of the law in Exo 23:20-33, and Lev 26.
Deu 28:1-6
The Blessing. - Deu 28:1. If Israel would hearken to the voice of the Lord its God, the Lord would make it the highest of all the nations of the earth. This thought, with which the discourse on the law in Deu 26:19 terminated, forms the theme, and i…
the head and not the tail: If Israel obeyed the terms of the covenant, it would lead the nations and not be subject to them.
Rashi on Deuteronomy 28:7
ובשבעה דרכים ינוסו לפניך AND THEY SHALL RUN AWAY BEFORE THEE SEVEN WAYS — Such is the manner of all who flee out of fear: they scatter in every direction.
