What Does Deuteronomy 14:28 Mean?
At the end of three years you shall bring out the whole tenth of your yield in that same year, and set it within your gates.
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
At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the tithe of thine increase the same year, and shalt lay it up within thy gates:THE KEY
The increase that comes into your hands is given a place at the gate, where it can become provision for the whole community.
THE MEANING
A measured portion of what comes into your hands is settled within the gates, where the community can reach it. The next verse names those who eat and are satisfied, showing that the stored portion serves shared sufficiency.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that what comes through your hands belongs only to you; the next verse shows the portion reaching those without an inheritance, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow.
THE ROOT
וְהִנַּחְתָּ
wə-hinnaḥtā
GROWS FROM
נוח
Rest, settle, come to rest.
“set it” in this verse is wə-hinnaḥtā. The phrase translated “lay it up” carries the root idea of bringing something to rest or settling it. That shade makes the gate a resting place for provision, where what has accumulated is held near the community that needs it.
ALSO GROWS
nûaḥ: Rest, settle, come to rest.
נוּחַ
It shows the underlying action in “lay it up”: the portion is made to settle in a particular place.
menûḥāh: Rest, resting place.
מְנוּחָה
This related form echoes the verse’s picture of provision given a settled place within the gates.
תְּבוּאָה
tevuʾāh
GROWS FROM
בוא
Come, enter.
“yield” in this verse is tevuʾāh. The word for increase belongs to the family of “coming in”: it presents produce as what arrives. In this verse, that arriving abundance has a route onward, so its movement through your hands does not end there.
ALSO GROWS
bôʾ: Come, enter.
בּוֹא
The root makes the idea of increase sound like an arrival into one’s life.
tevuʾāh: Produce, income; what comes in.
תְּבוּאָה
The verse’s word for increase retains that sense of what has come in and can now be shared.
מַעֲשֵׂר
maʿăśēr
GROWS FROM
עשר
Ten; take or give a tenth.
“tenth” in this verse is maʿăśēr. The Hebrew name for the tithe carries the count ten within it, framing the shared portion as a measured part of the whole. The nearby verb for tithing grows from the same consonants, joining the measure and the act in one word-family.
ALSO GROWS
ʿeśer: Ten.
עֶשֶׂר
The number is audible inside the word for tithe, revealing its measured relation to the whole.
ʿāśar: Take or give a tenth; tithe.
עָשַׂר
This verb shares the root and names the act of setting aside that measured portion.
THE PATTERN
Provision is gathered in measured portions, placed within reach, and distributed so that people in the community can be satisfied.
The Levite, for he has no portion nor inheritance with you, and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your gates, shall come and eat and be filled, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands which you do.For none among them lacked, for as many as owned fields or houses sold them and carried the prices of what was sold, and set them down at the feet of the sent ones, and it was given out to each as anyone had need.On the first day of the week, let each of you lay something by at his own side, storing it up, as his way has gone well for him, so that no gatherings are made when I come.THE THREAD
And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.The Hebrew verb rendered “rested” comes from the same root נוח (n-w-ḥ; nûaḥ), meaning “to rest or settle,” as “lay it up” here. The ark comes to rest carrying life through the flood; here, increase is settled within the gates so it can sustain life in the community.
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