What Does Deuteronomy 16:15 Mean?
Seven days you shall feast to the LORD your God in the place the LORD will choose, for the LORD your God will bless you in all your yield, and in all the doing of your hands, and you shall surely rejoice.
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
Seven days shalt thou keep a solemn feast unto the LORD thy God in the place which the LORD shall choose: because the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all thine increase, and in all the works of thine hands, therefore thou shalt surely rejoice.THE KEY
Joy here gathers both what comes into your life and what your hands make, placing livelihood itself inside the feast.
THE MEANING
As you receive what comes in and engage the work of your hands, this verse gathers both beneath the LORD’s blessing. Rejoicing takes a concrete shape here: seven days in the place the LORD chooses.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that sacred joy must be detached from material life: the verse places produce and the work of your hands within the LORD’s blessing.
THE ROOT
תְּבוּאָתְךָ
tevu’atekha
GROWS FROM
בוא
to come, enter
“all your yield” in this verse is tevu’atekha. The word for increase is tied to what comes in: abundance is framed as what arrives, not only what you produce. Set beside the work of your hands, it holds received yield and human labor together under one blessing.
ALSO GROWS
tevu’ah: produce, yield
תְּבוּאָה
This is the word in the verse; its root image of coming in illuminates increase as provision that arrives.
mavo: entrance, entry
מָבוֹא
This related form makes the root’s sense of coming or entering visible in another word.
יְבָרֶכְךָ
yevarekhekha
GROWS FROM
ברך
to bless; the same consonants also form “knee”
“bless” in this verse is yevarekhekha. The root family holds blessing alongside the knee, an image of bending and receiving. Here the blessing includes both yield and handiwork, so rejoicing is grounded in more than a tally of output.
ALSO GROWS
berakhah: blessing
בְּרָכָה
This noun shares the root of the blessing promised over the reader’s increase and work.
berekh: knee
בֶּרֶךְ
The shared root brings a posture of bending into view as an additional image within the word family.
תָּחֹג
tachog
GROWS FROM
חגג
to celebrate or keep a festival
The feast is an enacted celebration, not just an inward feeling. Its seven-day rhythm and chosen place give rejoicing a concrete form in life.
ALSO GROWS
chag: feast, festival
חַג
This related noun names the celebration the verse calls you to keep.
chagigah: festival celebration
חֲגִיגָה
This related form also carries the root’s sense of keeping a festal celebration.
THE PATTERN
The yield of the land and the work of human hands are treated as gifts whose expression is rejoicing.
And there you shall eat before the LORD your God, and you shall rejoice in all that you stretch out your hand to, you and your households, in which the LORD your God has blessed you.For you eat the weariness of your palms; flourishing is yours, and goodness is yours.Yet he did not leave himself without witness, doing good, giving you rain from heaven and seasons that bear fruit, filling your hearts with food and gladness.THE THREAD
And there you shall eat before the LORD your God, and you shall rejoice in all that you stretch out your hand to, you and your households, in which the LORD your God has blessed you.This verse repeats the roots ברך (barakh, bless) and שמח (samach, rejoice), binding gladness to what the hands touch. The repeated phrasing opens Deuteronomy 16:15’s joy as something woven through daily work and household provision.
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