Bible Strands
Deuteronomy 32:17
They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they had not known, to newly arrived gods, which your fathers did not fear.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Moses addresses Israel regarding their past rebellion, recounting how they abandoned their covenant deliverer for foreign deities.
The words — לַשְּׂדִים (la-she·dim) translates literally to “to the demons,” and חֲדָשִׁים (cha·da·shim) means “new.”
The thread — The pattern of abandoning the covenant God for foreign deities appears in Deuteronomy 28:64, Judges 5:8, and Leviticus 17:7. Leviticus 17:7 specifically identifies these foreign entities as goat demons rather than unfamiliar deities.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that idolatry replaces a known deliverer with unfamiliar powers, requiring the reader to trace worship away from the Rock and toward empty substitutes.
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
They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 28:64 Then the LORD will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.
- Judges 5:8 When they chose new gods, then war came to their gates. Not a shield or spear was found among forty thousand in Israel.
- Leviticus 17:7 They must no longer offer their sacrifices to the goat demons to which they have prostituted themselves. This will be a permanent statute for them for the generations to come.’
- Deuteronomy 32:21 They have provoked My jealousy by that which is not God; they have enraged Me with their worthless idols. So I will make them jealous by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation without understanding.
- Psalms 106:37 They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons.
- Isaiah 44:8 Do not tremble or fear. Have I not told you and declared it long ago? You are My witnesses! Is there any God but Me? There is no other Rock; I know not one.”
- 1 Timothy 4:1 Now the Spirit expressly states that in later times some will abandon the faith to follow deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons,
- Jeremiah 10:15 They are worthless, a work to be mocked. In the time of their punishment they will perish.
- 1 Corinthians 8:4 So about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world, and that there is no God but one.
- 1 Corinthians 10:19 Am I suggesting, then, that food sacrificed to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything?