To SEEK, inquire of, consult — the ordinary verb for going to a god, a prophet, or an oracle with a question. It is the drumbeat of 2 Kings 1 (vv 2, 3, 6, 16): the charge against Ahaziah is not that he broke a rule but that he sent to INQUIRE somewhere else, 'as though there were no God in Israel.' The same verb carries the warmer sense in the prophets and psalms — to seek Jehovah, to resort to him. Jeremiah 29 uses both senses six verses apart: 'seek the shalom of the city' (v7), of Babylon, and ⭐ Deuteronomy 11:12 does something no other verse does with it: the object is a piece of GROUND. 'A land that Jehovah your God doresh' — seeks after, inquires about, requires an account of. Every witness on the shelf softens it to caring for the land (KJV/ASV/Geneva 'careth for'), which is a defensible sense and removes the strangeness the Hebrew has; this translation keeps 'seeks after' and puts the range here. 'you will search for me and find me' (v13). The KJV and ASV keep one English verb at v7 ('seek'); the NIV and NWT switch to 'seek the peace and prosperity' and 'seek the peace', and the Spanish RV goes to 'procurad' — procure it, work for it. ⭐ Deuteronomy gives the verb three different objects in two chapters: commanded at 12:5 (seek out his dwelling), forbidden at 12:30 (do not inquire after their gods), and then at 13:15 neither — there it heads three verbs of judicial enquiry, ve-darashta ve-chaqarta ve-sha'alta heitev, that must be satisfied before a town accused of apostasy may be touched. ⭐ Deuteronomy 23 uses it twice with opposite subjects: you shall not seek Ammon's and Moab's peace, v7 — the exact verb and noun Jeremiah 29:7 uses to command the exiles to seek the shalom of Babylon — and then at v22 Jehovah will certainly seek an unpaid vow from you, darosh yidreshennu, doubled, the vow treated as a debt he collects in person; the brother who comes seeking his lost ox at 22:2 is the same verb one chapter earlier. → first discussed at 2 Kings 1:2