Exodus 20:5

World English Bible (2000)

you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me,

📖 Grammatical Analysis

Original Text

לֹֽא־תִשְׁתַּחְוֶ֥֣ה לָהֶ֖ם֮ וְלֹ֣א תָעָבְדֵ֑ם֒ כִּ֣י אֽ͏ָנֹכִ֞י יְהוָ֤ה אֱלֹהֶ֙יךָ֙ אֵ֣ל קַנָּ֔א פֹּ֠קֵד עֲוֺ֨ן אָבֹ֧ת עַל־בָּנִ֛ים עַל־שִׁלֵּשִׁ֥ים וְעַל־רִבֵּעִ֖ים לְשֹׂנְאָֽ֑י׃

Transliteration

lōʾ-ṯishtaḥăweh lāhem wə-lōʾ ṯāʿāḇəḏēm kî ʾānōḵî YHWH ʾĕlōheḵā ʾēl qannāʾ pōqēḏ ʿăwōn ʾāḇōṯ ʿal-bānîm ʿal-shillēshîm wə-ʿal-ribēʿîm lə-śōnəʾāy

Grammar Details

• *lōʾ-ṯishtaḥăweh*: negative particle + hishtaphel imperfect, 2nd masculine singular - you shall not bow down
• *lāhem*: preposition with 3rd masculine plural suffix - to them
• *wə-lōʾ ṯāʿāḇəḏēm*: conjunction + negative particle + qal imperfect, 2nd masculine singular with 3rd masculine plural suffix - and you shall not serve them
• *kî*: conjunction - for/because
• *ʾānōḵî*: 1st person singular pronoun - I
• *YHWH*: proper name - LORD/YHWH
• *ʾĕlōheḵā*: masculine plural noun construct with 2nd masculine singular suffix - your God
• *ʾēl qannāʾ*: masculine singular noun + adjective - jealous God
• *pōqēḏ*: qal participle, masculine singular - visiting/punishing
• *ʿăwōn*: masculine singular construct - iniquity of
• *ʾāḇōṯ*: masculine plural noun - fathers
• *ʿal-bānîm*: preposition + masculine plural noun - upon children
• *ʿal-shillēshîm*: preposition + masculine plural ordinal - upon third [generation]
• *wə-ʿal-ribēʿîm*: conjunction + preposition + masculine plural ordinal - and upon fourth [generation]
• *lə-śōnəʾāy*: preposition + qal participle plural construct with 1st singular suffix - to those hating me

Word Meanings

• *ṯishtaḥăweh*: bow down/prostrate yourself/worship
• *ṯāʿāḇəḏēm*: serve them/worship them/be enslaved to them
• *ʾēl qannāʾ*: jealous God/zealous God/passionate God
• *pōqēḏ*: visiting/punishing/attending to
• *ʿăwōn*: iniquity/guilt/punishment
• *lə-śōnəʾāy*: to those who hate me/to my enemies

Referenced Verses

• Num 14:18 : 18 'Yahweh is slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, forgiving iniquity and disobedience; and that will by no means clear [the guilty], visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation.'
• Exod 34:14 : 14 for you shall worship no other god: for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
• Nah 1:2 : 2 Yahweh is a jealous God and avenges. Yahweh avenges and is full of wrath. Yahweh takes vengeance on his adversaries, and he maintains wrath against his enemies.
• Jer 32:18 : 18 who show loving kindness to thousands, and recompense the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them; the great, the mighty God, Yahweh of Armies is his name;
• Deut 4:24 : 24 For Yahweh your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.
• Deut 5:9 : 9 you shall not bow down yourself to them, nor serve them; for I, Yahweh, your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me;
• Deut 6:15 : 15 for Yahweh your God in the midst of you is a jealous God; lest the anger of Yahweh your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.
• Josh 23:7 : 7 that you not come among these nations, these that remain among you; neither make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause to swear by them, neither serve them, nor bow down yourselves to them;
• Exod 23:24 : 24 You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor follow their practices, but you shall utterly overthrow them and demolish their pillars.
• Num 14:33 : 33 Your children shall be wanderers in the wilderness forty years, and shall bear your prostitution, until your dead bodies be consumed in the wilderness.
• Josh 24:19 : 19 Joshua said to the people, "You can't serve Yahweh; for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your disobedience nor your sins.
• Ps 79:8 : 8 Don't hold the iniquities of our forefathers against us. Let your tender mercies speedily meet us, for we are in desperate need.
• Ps 109:14 : 14 Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered by Yahweh. Don't let the sin of his mother be blotted out.
• Isa 65:6-7 : 6 "Behold, it is written before me: I will not keep silence, but will recompense, yes, I will recompense into their bosom, 7 your own iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together," says Yahweh, "who have burned incense on the mountains, and blasphemed me on the hills; therefore will I first measure their work into their bosom."
• Jer 2:9 : 9 "Therefore I will yet contend with you," says Yahweh, "and I will contend with your children's children.
• John 7:7 : 7 The world can't hate you, but it hates me, because I testify about it, that its works are evil.
• John 15:18 : 18 If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you.
• John 15:23-24 : 23 He who hates me, hates my Father also. 24 If I hadn't done among them the works which no one else did, they wouldn't have had sin. But now have they seen and also hated both me and my Father.
• Rom 1:30 : 30 backbiters, hateful to God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
• Lev 26:39-40 : 39 Those of you who are left will pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them. 40 "'If they confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against me, and also that, because they walked contrary to me,
• Jas 4:4 : 4 You adulterers and adulteresses, don't you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
• Isa 14:20-21 : 20 You will not join them in burial, because you have destroyed your land. You have killed your people. The seed of evildoers will not be named forever. 21 Prepare for slaughter of his children because of the iniquity of their fathers, that they not rise up and possess the earth, and fill the surface of the world with cities.
• Isa 44:15 : 15 Then it will be for a man to burn; and he takes some of it, and warms himself. Yes, he burns it, and bakes bread. Yes, he makes a god, and worships it; he makes it an engraved image, and falls down to it.
• Isa 44:19 : 19 No one thinks, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, "I have burned part of it in the fire. Yes, I have also baked bread on its coals. I have roasted meat and eaten it. Shall I make the rest of it into an abomination? Shall I bow down to a tree trunk?"
• Ps 81:15 : 15 The haters of Yahweh would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever.
• Job 5:4 : 4 His children are far from safety. They are crushed in the gate. Neither is there any to deliver them,
• 2 Kgs 23:26 : 26 Notwithstanding, Yahweh didn't turn from the fierceness of his great wrath, with which his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocation with which Manasseh had provoked him.
• 2 Sam 21:1 : 1 There was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David sought the face of Yahweh. Yahweh said, "It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he put to death the Gibeonites."
• 2 Sam 21:6 : 6 let seven men of his sons be delivered to us, and we will hang them up to Yahweh in Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of Yahweh." The king said, "I will give them."
• 1 Kgs 21:29 : 29 "See how Ahab humbles himself before me? Because he humbles himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days; but in his son's days will I bring the evil on his house."
• 2 Kgs 17:35 : 35 with whom Yahweh had made a covenant, and commanded them, saying, "You shall not fear other gods, nor bow yourselves to them, nor serve them, nor sacrifice to them;
• Lev 26:1 : 1 "'You shall make for yourselves no idols, neither shall you raise up an engraved image or a pillar, neither shall you place any figured stone in your land, to bow down to it: for I am Yahweh your God.
• Deut 32:21 : 21 They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities. I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
• Deut 32:41 : 41 if I whet my glittering sword, My hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to my adversaries, and will recompense those who hate me.
• Josh 23:16 : 16 when you disobey the covenant of Yahweh your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods, and bow down yourselves to them. Then the anger of Yahweh will be kindled against you, and you will perish quickly from off the good land which he has given to you."
• Deut 7:10 : 10 and repays those who hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him who hates him, he will repay him to his face.
• Lev 26:29 : 29 You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters.
• Exod 34:6-7 : 6 Yahweh passed by before him, and proclaimed, "Yahweh! Yahweh, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth, 7 keeping loving kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and disobedience and sin; and that will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the children's children, on the third and on the fourth generation."
• Lev 20:5 : 5 then I will set my face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off, and all who play the prostitute after him, to play the prostitute with Molech, from among their people.
• 2 Kgs 17:41 : 41 So these nations feared Yahweh, and served their engraved images. Their children likewise, and their children's children, as their fathers did, so they do to this day.
• 2 Chr 25:14 : 14 Now it happened, after that Amaziah was come from the slaughter of the Edomites, that he brought the gods of the children of Seir, and set them up to be his gods, and bowed down himself before them, and burned incense to them.
• Judg 2:19 : 19 But it happened, when the judge was dead, that they turned back, and dealt more corruptly than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and to bow down to them; they didn't cease from their doings, nor from their stubborn way.
• 1 Sam 15:2-3 : 2 Thus says Yahweh of Armies, 'I have marked that which Amalek did to Israel, how he set himself against him in the way, when he came up out of Egypt. 3 Now go and strike Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and don't spare them; but kill both man and woman, infant and nursing baby, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.'"
• Job 21:19 : 19 You say, 'God lays up his iniquity for his children.' Let him recompense it to himself, that he may know it.
• Ps 78:58 : 58 For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images.
• Prov 6:34-35 : 34 For jealousy arouses the fury of the husband. He won't spare in the day of vengeance. 35 He won't regard any ransom, neither will he rest content, though you give many gifts.
• Prov 8:36 : 36 But he who sins against me wrongs his own soul. All those who hate me love death."
• Matt 4:9 : 9 He said to him, "I will give you all of these things, if you will fall down and worship me."
• Matt 23:34-36 : 34 Therefore, behold, I send to you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify; and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city; 35 that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the sanctuary and the altar. 36 Most certainly I tell you, all these things will come upon this generation.
• Rom 8:7 : 7 because the mind of the flesh is hostile towards God; for it is not subject to God's law, neither indeed can it be.
• 1 Cor 10:22 : 22 Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?
• Ezek 8:3 : 3 He put forth the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and the sky, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the gate of the inner [court] that looks toward the north; where there was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy.
• Dan 1:2 : 2 The Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God; and he carried them into the land of Shinar to the house of his god: and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god.