2 Kings 17:38

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

and the covenant that I have made with you you shall not forget; neither shall you fear other gods:

World English Bible · Public Domain

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Word by word

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תִשְׁכָּ֑חוּ

shâkach

H7911

“to forget”

Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural

Appears 102× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 27:45

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 2383

to forget, ignore, wither - (Qal) - to forget - to cease to care - (Niphal) to be forgotten - (Piel) to cause to forget - (Hiphil) to make or cause to forget - (Hithpael) to be forgotten

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

10: words
9: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Grammatical profile

3 verbs
2 nouns
1 adjective
1 preposition
3 particles

Verb forms

כָּרַ֥תִּי Qal · Perfect
תִשְׁכָּ֑חוּ Qal · Imperfect
תִֽירְא֖וּ Qal · Imperfect

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

לֹ֣א not H3808 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 19 words from the Hebrew and 18 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 10 Hebrew tokens and 14 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to 2 Kings 17:38 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Deuteronomy 4:23 Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of Yahweh your God, which he made with you, and make you an engraved image in the form of anything which Yahweh your God has forbidden you.
Deuteronomy 6:12 then beware lest you forget Yahweh, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
Deuteronomy 8:14–18 then your heart be lifted up, and you forget Yahweh your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage;

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew 2 Kings 17:38 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וְהַבְּרִ֛ית אֲשֶׁר כָּרַ֥תִּי אִתְּכֶ֖ם לֹ֣א תִשְׁכָּ֑חוּ וְלֹ֥א תִֽירְא֖וּ אֱלֹהִ֥ים אֲחֵרִֽים

and the covenant that I have made with you you shall not forget; neither shall you fear other gods:

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 2 Kings 17:38 Septuagint · lemma form

καί ὁ διαθήκη ὅς διατίθημι μετά σύ οὐ ἐπιλανθάνω καί οὐ φοβέω θεός ἕτερος

Neither shall you⌃ forget the covenant which he made with you: and you⌃ shall not fear other gods.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

וּקְיָמָא דִגְזָרִית עִמְכוֹן לָא תִתְנְשׁוּן וְלָא תִדְחֲלוּן לְטַעֲוַת עַמְמַיָא:

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on 2 Kings 17:38 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(38) Neither shall ye fear other gods.—This formula is repeated thrice (2Ki_17:35; 2Ki_17:37-38), as the main point of the covenant between Jehovah and Israel.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

But the Lord your God ye shall fear,.... Or worship him, both internally and externally, according to his revealed will; for the fear of God includes both internal and external worship:

and he shall deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies; that is, provided they feared and served him as he required, and it became them to do.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The Pulpit Commentary

And the covenant that I have made with you ye shall not forget. The "covenant" intended is not the covenant of circumcision, which God made with Abraham, (Gen_17:9-14) but the covenant of protection and obedience made at Sinai between God and the entire people, (Exo_19:5-8) and most solemnly ratified by sprinkling with blood and by a covenant feast, as related in Exo_24:3-11. This was the covenant which Israel had been warned so frequently not to "forget" (Deu_4:23 Deu_8:11 Deu_26:13; Pro_2:17) yet which they had "forgotten," or, at any rate, "forsaken," as already declared in ver. 15. Neither shall ye fear other gods. The writer has probably a practical object in his reiteration. He expects his words to reach the ears of the mixed race inhabiting Samaria in his day, and would fain warn them against their idolatrous practices, and point them to the pure worship of Jehovah. It is pleasing to remember that ultimately the mixed race was won to the true faith, and that the Samaritans of our Lord"s time were as true worshippers of Jehovah, and as zealous followers of the Law, as the Jews themselves. The interesting community at Nablous still maintains Samaritan forms, and reads the Samaritan Pentateuch.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

2 Kings, in the Historical, opens this verse with 10 words (9 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is shâkach (“to forget”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “to forget” (shâkach) shape what this verse is saying?
How does Deuteronomy 4:23, which shares this passage’s theme, read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “not” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
«כָּרַ֥תִּי» is a Qal Perfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers and John Gill's Exposition read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 10 Hebrew ↔ 14 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 4 words in this verse.
“not” occurs 2× in this single verse.
9 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 10 words in this verse.