What Does Deuteronomy 12:20 Mean?
When the LORD your God widens your border, as he has promised you, and you say, "I will eat flesh," because your living soul craves to eat flesh; you may eat flesh, whatever your living soul craves.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
When the LORD thy God shall enlarge thy border, as he hath promised thee, and thou shalt say, I will eat flesh, because thy soul longeth to eat flesh; thou mayest eat flesh, whatsoever thy soul lusteth after.THE KEY
The widening reaches the table: the living soul’s desire for meat is named and permitted as part of the expanded provision.
THE MEANING
The verse brings you to a table within widening provision: your living self desires flesh, and the desire is openly permitted. It places ordinary appetite within what the LORD provides, rather than treating the wish for food as shameful.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that wanting a meal is spiritually suspect: here, the desire for flesh is named and permitted within God’s provision.
THE ROOT
יַרְחִיב
yarchiv
GROWS FROM
רחב
to widen, become spacious
“widens” in this verse is yarchiv. The verb comes from רחב (rachav, widen), the same root behind words for a wide space. The verse’s widening of the border opens into something ordinary and concrete: room to eat the food the living self desires.
ALSO GROWS
reḥavah: Wide, spacious
רְחָבָה
The root’s sense of spaciousness appears in the description of a wide land, showing the literal room carried by the promise.
merḥav: An open or broad place
מֶרְחָב
This same root names a broad place in Psalm 18:19, linking the widened boundary here with the experience of being brought into room.
נַפְשְׁךָ
nafshəkha
GROWS FROM
נפש
living self, person, living soul
“living soul” in this verse is nafshəkha. The Hebrew says your nephesh desires: nephesh is the living self, and here it also carries the sense of appetite. English “soul” can sound like an inner part detached from ordinary life; the Hebrew keeps the desire to eat connected to the whole living person.
ALSO GROWS
nephesh: A living being or person
נֶפֶשׁ
The word used for “thy soul” names the living self whose desire for food the verse acknowledges.
naphash: To be refreshed or recover
נָפַשׁ
This related form appears in Exodus 23:12; it places refreshment beside the living self and its appetite in this verse.
תְאַוֶּה
te’avveh
GROWS FROM
אוה
to desire, long for
“craves” in this verse is te’avveh. The root names longing or desire. Here the longing is for food, and the verse explicitly permits it; the word itself does not label the desire as wrong.
ALSO GROWS
ta’avah: A longing or craving
תַּאֲוָה
This noun from the same root shows how desire can be expressed as a thing the living self feels.
hit’avvu: They desired or craved
הִתְאַוּוּ
Numbers 11:4 uses this root for craving food, showing the same desire-word in another scene of wanting meat.
THE PATTERN
God’s provision includes the nourishment and enjoyment of ordinary food.
He makes the grass sprout for the cattle, and the herb for the service of humankind, to bring bread out from the earth. And wine that gladdens the heart of a frail one, and oil to make his face shine, and bread that holds up the heart of a frail one.There is nothing better for a person than to eat and to drink, and to make his living soul see good in his toil. This also I saw, that it is from the hand of God.For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be thrown away when it is taken with thanksgiving.THE THREAD
I run the way of your commands, when you widen my heart.Deuteronomy’s “enlarge” and the Psalm’s “enlarge” come from רחב (rachav, widen or become spacious). One speaks of a widened boundary and the other of an enlarged heart: the same root carries room from the land around you to the capacity within you.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us