What Does Deuteronomy 15:9 Mean?
Guard yourself, lest there be a worthless word in your heart, saying, "The seventh year, the year of release, draws near," and your eye be evil against your brother in want, and you give him nothing, and he cries out to the LORD against you, and there will be a shortcoming in you.
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
Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought; and he cry unto the LORD against thee, and it be sin unto thee.THE KEY
The coming release is not only a date: its root means letting a claim drop, so the verse exposes how fear of loss can close the hand before release arrives.
THE MEANING
The verse meets the moment when a future cost enters your calculation about someone who needs help now. The coming release does not erase the need in front of you: when you turn your eye against your brother and withhold, the cry reaches the LORD, and the refusal becomes your own missing.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that help is safe to withhold because the release year is near: the poor person’s cry reaches the LORD, and the refusal becomes your missing.
THE ROOT
שְׁמִטָּה
shemittah
GROWS FROM
שׁמט
sh-m-t
Let fall, drop, release.
“year of release” in this verse is shemittah. The word translated release grows from shamat, to let something drop. The approaching year names a real act of letting a claim fall from the hand, which makes withholding because that year is near the opposite of what the word names.
ALSO GROWS
shamot: Release; let a claim drop (Deuteronomy 15:2).
שָׁמֹוט
The neighboring command uses this form from the same root, making the debt itself what falls from the creditor’s hand.
tashmet: You shall release (Deuteronomy 15:3).
תַּשְׁמֵט
The verse pairs release with the hand: the lender is to let go of the claim against a brother.
דָּבָר
davar
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
Speak; word, matter, or thing.
The thought in the heart is a davar, a word or matter, and the verse immediately gives its content with saying. English separates private thought from spoken excuse, while this word lets them sit together as one forming proposition that shapes the hand.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: He spoke.
דִּבֵּר
The verb shares the root with davar, linking the inner calculation to the saying that follows.
devarim: Words or matters.
דְּבָרִים
This plural carries both senses of the root, showing how a word can also be a matter with consequences.
חֵטְא
chet
GROWS FROM
חטא
ch-t-ʾ
Miss, err, fail.
“shortcoming” in this verse is chet. Alongside the force of sin, this root carries the sense of missing or erring. That shade lets the line show the closed hand as a failure to meet the neighbor’s need, giving texture to the English without reducing its force.
ALSO GROWS
chata: To miss or err.
חָטָא
The verb shares the root and illuminates sin as a failure or missing.
chatta’t: Missing or wrongdoing; in sacrificial language, an offering for the missing.
חַטָּאת
This related form shows the root’s range from the failure itself to what addresses it.
THE PATTERN
When the hand closes against the vulnerable, the withheld help becomes a cry before God.
You shall surely give to him, and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him, for on account of this word the LORD your God will bless you in all your work, and in all that you stretch your hand out to.Whoever stops up his ear to the cry of the emptied one also cries out, and is not answered.Look, the wages of the workers who mowed your fields, stripped away by your fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have gone into the ears of the LORD of hosts.THE THREAD
And this is the word of the release. Every one whose hand has lent to his neighbor shall let it fall, and he shall not press it from his neighbor or from his brother, for it is called the LORD's release.The phrase year of release uses שְׁמִטָּה (shemittah, release), from שׁמט (shamat, to let drop), the same word family behind make a release here. Verse 2 names the debt the creditor lets drop; verse 9 reveals how the coming cancellation can already shape a lender’s gaze and hand. The shared root connects the calendar’s release to the present decision to extend or withhold help.
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