2 Kings 17:35

Bible in Basic English (1941)

And the Lord made an agreement with them and gave them orders, saying, You are to have no other gods; you are not to give worship to them or be their servants or make them offerings:

📖 Grammatical Analysis

Original Text

וַיִּכְרֹ֨ת יְהוָ֤ה אִתָּם֙ בְּרִ֔ית וַיְצַוֵּ֣ם לֵאמֹ֔ר לֹ֥א תִֽירְא֖וּ אֱלֹהִ֣ים אֲחֵרִ֑ים וְלֹא־תִשְׁתַּחֲו֣וּ לָהֶ֔ם וְלֹ֣א תַעַבְד֔וּם וְלֹ֥א תִזְבְּח֖וּ לָהֶֽם׃

Transliteration

wa-yikrōt YHWH ʾittām bərît wa-yəṣawwēm lēmōr lōʾ tîrəʾû ʾĕlōhîm ʾăḥērîm wə-lōʾ-tištaḥăwû lāhem wə-lōʾ taʿabdûm wə-lōʾ tizbəḥû lāhem

Grammar Details

• *wa-yikrōt*: conjunction + Qal imperfect 3ms - and he cut/made
• *YHWH*: divine name - LORD/Yahweh
• *ʾittām*: preposition + 3mp suffix - with them
• *bərît*: feminine singular noun - covenant
• *wa-yəṣawwēm*: conjunction + Piel imperfect 3ms + 3mp suffix - and he commanded them
• *lēmōr*: Qal infinitive construct - saying
• *lōʾ*: negative particle - not
• *tîrəʾû*: Qal imperfect 2mp - you shall fear
• *ʾĕlōhîm*: masculine plural noun - gods
• *ʾăḥērîm*: masculine plural adjective - other
• *wə-lōʾ*: conjunction + negative particle - and not
• *tištaḥăwû*: Hishtaphel imperfect 2mp - you shall bow down
• *lāhem*: preposition + 3mp suffix - to them
• *taʿabdûm*: Qal imperfect 2mp + 3mp suffix - you shall serve them
• *tizbəḥû*: Qal imperfect 2mp - you shall sacrifice

Word Meanings

• *wa-yikrōt bərît*: made a covenant/cut a covenant (idiom)
• *tîrəʾû*: fear/revere/worship
• *tištaḥăwû*: bow down to/prostrate before/worship

Referenced Verses

• Judg 6:10 : 10 And I said to you, I am the Lord your God; you are not to give worship to the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living, but you did not give ear to my voice.
• Exod 34:12-17 : 12 But take care, and do not make any agreement with the people of the land where you are going, for it will be a cause of sin to you. 13 But their altars are to be overturned and their pillars broken and their images cut down: 14 For you are to be worshippers of no other god: for the Lord is a God who will not give his honour to another. 15 So see that you make no agreement with the people of the land, and do not go after their gods, or take part in their offerings, or be guests at their feasts, 16 Or take their daughters for your sons; for when their daughters give worship before their gods, they will make your sons take part with them. 17 Make for yourselves no gods of metal.
• Deut 4:23-27 : 23 Take care that you do not let the agreement of the Lord your God, which he has made with you, go out of your mind, or make for yourselves images of any sort, against the orders which the Lord your God has given you. 24 For the Lord your God is an all-burning fire, and he will not let the honour which is his be given to any other. 25 If, when you have had children and children's children, and have been living a long time in the land, you are turned to evil ways, and make an image of any sort, and do evil in the eyes of the Lord your God, moving him to wrath: 26 May heaven and earth be my witnesses against you today, that destruction will quickly overtake you, cutting you off from that land which you are going over Jordan to take; your days will not be long in that land, but you will come to a complete end. 27 And the Lord will send you wandering among the peoples; only a small band of you will be kept from death among the nations where the Lord will send you.
• Exod 20:4-5 : 4 You are not to make an image or picture of anything in heaven or on the earth or in the waters under the earth: 5 You may not go down on your faces before them or give them worship: for I, the Lord your God, am a God who will not give his honour to another; and I will send punishment on the children for the wrongdoing of their fathers, to the third and fourth generation of my haters;
• Josh 23:7 : 7 Have nothing to do with these nations who still are living among you; let not their gods be named by you or used in your oaths; do not be their servants or give them worship:
• Josh 23:16 : 16 If the agreement of the Lord your God, which was given to you by his orders, is broken, and you become the servants of other gods and give them worship, then the wrath of the Lord will be burning against you, and you will quickly be cut off from the good land which he has given you.
• Exod 24:6-8 : 6 And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins; draining out half of the blood over the altar. 7 And he took the book of the agreement, reading it in the hearing of the people: and they said, Everything which the Lord has said we will do, and we will keep his laws. 8 Then Moses took the blood and let it come on the people, and said, This blood is the sign of the agreement which the Lord has made with you in these words.
• Deut 13:1-9 : 1 If ever you have among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams and he gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 And the sign or the wonder takes place, and he says to you, Let us go after other gods, which are strange to you, and give them worship; 3 Then give no attention to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams: for the Lord your God is testing you, to see if all the love of your heart and soul is given to him. 4 But keep on in the ways of the Lord your God, fearing him and keeping his orders and hearing his voice, worshipping him and being true to him. 5 And that prophet or that dreamer of dreams is to be put to death; for his words were said with the purpose of turning you away from the Lord your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt and made you free from the prison-house; and of forcing you out of the way in which the Lord your God has given you orders to go. So you are to put away the evil from among you. 6 If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife of your heart, or the friend who is as dear to you as your life, working on you secretly says to you, Let us go and give worship to other gods, strange to you and to your fathers; 7 Gods of the peoples round about you, near or far, from one end of the earth to the other; 8 Do not be guided by him or give attention to him; have no pity on him or mercy, and give him no cover; 9 But put him to death without question; let your hand be the first stretched out against him to put him to death, and then the hands of all the people. 10 Let him be stoned with stones till he is dead; because it was his purpose to make you false to the Lord your God, who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the prison-house. 11 And all Israel, hearing of it, will be full of fear, and no one will again do such evil as this among you. 12 And if word comes to you, in one of the towns which the Lord your God is giving you for your resting-place, 13 That good-for-nothing persons have gone out from among you, turning the people of their town from the right way and saying, Let us go and give worship to other gods, of whom you have no knowledge; 14 Then let a full search be made, and let questions be put with care; and if it is true and certain that such a disgusting thing has been done among you; 15 Then take up arms against the people of that town and give it up to the curse, with all its cattle and everything in it. 16 And take all the goods into the middle of its open space, burning the town and all its property with fire as an offering to the Lord your God; it is to be a waste for ever; there is to be no more building there. 17 Keep not a thing of what is cursed for yourselves: so the Lord may be turned away from the heat of his wrath, and have mercy on you, and give you increase as he said in his oath to your fathers: 18 So long as you give ear to the voice of the Lord your God, and keep all his orders which I give you today, and do what is right in the eyes of the Lord your God.
• Deut 29:10-15 : 10 You have come here today, all of you, before the Lord your God; the heads of your tribes, the overseers, and those who are in authority over you, with all the men of Israel, 11 And your little ones, your wives, and the men of other lands who are with you in your tents, down to the wood-cutter and the servant who gets water for you: 12 With the purpose of taking part in the agreement of the Lord your God, and his oath which he makes with you today: 13 And so that he may make you his people today, and be your God, as he has said to you, and as he made an oath to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 14 And not with you only do I make this agreement and this oath; 15 But with everyone who is here with us today before the Lord our God, as well as with those who are not here:
• 2 Kgs 17:15 : 15 And they went against his rules, and the agreement which he made with their fathers, and his laws which he gave them; they gave themselves up to things without sense or value, and became foolish like the nations round them, of whom the Lord had said, Do not as they do.
• Jer 10:5 : 5 It is like a pillar in a garden of plants, and has no voice: it has to be lifted, for it has no power of walking. Have no fear of it; for it has no power of doing evil and it is not able to do any good.
• Jer 31:31-34 : 31 See, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new agreement with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah: 32 Not like the agreement which I made with their fathers, on the day when I took them by the hand to be their guide out of the land of Egypt; which agreement was broken by them, and I gave them up, says the Lord. 33 But this is the agreement which I will make with the people of Israel after those days, says the Lord; I will put my law in their inner parts, writing it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 And no longer will they be teaching every man his neighbour and every man his brother, saying, Get knowledge of the Lord: for they will all have knowledge of me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord: for they will have my forgiveness for their evil-doing, and their sin will go from my memory for ever.
• Heb 8:6-9 : 6 But now his position as priest is higher. because through him God has made a better agreement with man, based on the giving of better things. 7 For if that first agreement had been as good as possible, there would have been no place for a second. 8 For, protesting against them, he says, See, the days are coming when I will make a new agreement with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; 9 Not like the agreement which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand, to be their guide out of the land of Egypt; for they did not keep the agreement with me, and I gave them up, says the Lord. 10 For this is the agreement which I will make with the people of Israel after those days: I will put my laws into their minds, writing them in their hearts: and I will be their God, and they will be my people: 11 And there will be no need for every man to be teaching his brother, or his neighbour, saying, This is the knowledge of the Lord: for they will all have knowledge of me, great and small. 12 And I will have mercy on their evil-doing, and I will not keep their sins in mind. 13 When he says, A new agreement, he has made the first agreement old. But anything which is getting old and past use will not be seen much longer.
• Exod 19:5-6 : 5 If now you will truly give ear to my voice and keep my agreement, you will be my special property out of all the peoples: for all the earth is mine: 6 And you will be a kingdom of priests to me, and a holy nation. These are the words which you are to say to the children of Israel.