Bible Strands
Deuteronomy 29:11
your children and wives, and the foreigners in your camps who cut your wood and draw your water—
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Moses addresses the assembled leaders, elders, officials, and all men of Israel as they stand before the LORD to ratify a covenant. He expands the scope of the agreement to include every demographic present in the encampment.
The words — The text highlights גֵרְךָ (Ge.re.kha), meaning "your sojourner" or "foreigner," and עֵצֶיךָ ('e.Tzei.kha), meaning "your wood." These terms specify the vulnerable residents and their manual labor within the Israelite camps.
The thread — This inclusion of non-Israelites in camp life echoes Exodus 12:38 and Exodus 12:48, where foreigners are noted among the departing multitude and given pathways to Passover participation. The pattern of camp laborers and outsiders also appears in Numbers 11:4 regarding the rabble among the Israelites.
Why it lands — The verse demands recognition that community boundaries and covenant obligations encompass every person dependent on the camp's resources. It requires readers to account for the marginalized and laboring foreigners when defining the assembled people.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water:
Cross-references
- Exodus 12:38 And a mixed multitude also went up with them, along with great droves of livestock, both flocks and herds.
- Exodus 12:48 If a foreigner resides with you and wants to celebrate the LORD’s Passover, all the males in the household must be circumcised; then he may come near to celebrate it, and he shall be like a native of the land. But no uncircumcised man may eat of it.
- Numbers 11:4 Meanwhile, the rabble among them had a strong craving for other food, and again the Israelites wept and said, “Who will feed us meat?
- Deuteronomy 5:14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God, on which you must not do any work—neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox or donkey or any of your livestock, nor the foreigner within your gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest as you do.
- Joshua 9:21 They continued, “Let them live, but let them be woodcutters and water carriers for the whole congregation.” So the leaders kept their promise.
- Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
- Colossians 3:11 Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, or free, but Christ is all and is in all.