What Does Deuteronomy 18:4 Mean?
The head of your grain, of your new wine, and of your oil, and the head of the shearing of your flock, you give to him.
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
The firstfruit also of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the first of the fleece of thy sheep, shalt thou give him.THE KEY
The word for “first” grows from the word for “head,” so even the flock’s first fleece is the leading share that is given.
THE MEANING
The first share of your grain, wine, oil, and flock’s fleece is given to him. Harvest and shearing belong to the same pattern: each has a first portion that enters the giving.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The first share concerns only food or saleable harvest. The verse includes the flock’s first fleece alongside grain, wine, and oil.
THE ROOT
רֵאשִׁית
reshit
GROWS FROM
רֹאשׁ
rosh
Head, chief, or top; the leading part.
Reshit grows from rosh, “head,” so “first” carries the sense of what leads, not only what comes earliest. The same leading share applies to the flock’s fleece as to its grain, wine, and oil.
ALSO GROWS
rosh: The head or leading part.
רֹאשׁ
This shared root reveals the “first” as the portion at the head of the whole.
rishon: What comes first or stands before what follows.
רִאשׁוֹן
Like reshit, it carries the idea of a leading position in a sequence.
תִּתֶּן
titten
GROWS FROM
נָתַן
natan
To give, put, or set in place.
“give” in this verse is titten. The verb belongs to a root that can mean both giving and placing. The first share is made tangible by being set into someone else’s hands.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: A gift or present.
מַתָּנָה
This noun from the same root names the act of giving as a tangible gift.
natun: Something given or set in place.
נָתוּן
It echoes the verse’s movement from a portion identified as first to a portion placed with its recipient.
THE PATTERN
The first portion is set apart as the opening share of a larger increase.
The first of the first-ripened of your ground you shall bring into the house of the LORD your God. You shall not boil a kid in his mother's milk.Give the LORD weight with your wealth, and with the first of all your yield.But now the Anointed One has been awakened from the dead, and has become the first portion of those who have lain down to sleep.THE THREAD
And now, behold, I have brought the first-ripened fruit of the ground, which you, O LORD, have given me. And you set it down before the LORD your God, and bow down before the LORD your God.This verse uses the same Hebrew word, reshit, for the land’s first produce and describes it as something already given. The first share sits at the seam between receiving provision and giving it onward.
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