What Does Deuteronomy 2:6 Mean?
You will buy food from them for money, that you may eat; and you will also buy waters from them for money, that you may drink.
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
Ye shall buy meat of them for money, that ye may eat; and ye shall also buy water of them for money, that ye may drink.THE KEY
The verb translated “buy” for water also means “dig,” so the verse hides a picture of thirst met by opening a way to the source.
THE MEANING
You need food and water, and the verse names both needs plainly: you buy food and eat it, buy water and drink it. Provision reaches you through other people and an ordinary exchange, then becomes nourishment as you take it in.
THE ROOT
תִּכְרוּ
tikru
GROWS FROM
כרה
karah
Dig or excavate; the verb also carries the sense of procuring water.
The verb behind “buy” water belongs to כרה (karah, “dig”), so English “buy” conceals an image of reaching water by opening the ground. The verse pairs it with a different verb for buying food, giving water access the feel of a source opened.
ALSO GROWS
karah: Dig, excavate.
כָּרָה
This is the concrete sense beneath the water-purchase verb: opening the ground to reach what lies below.
karita: Dug, opened.
כָּרִיתָ
Psalm 40:6 uses this form for ears God has “opened,” extending digging into an image of an opened channel.
תִּשְׁבְּרוּ
tishberu
GROWS FROM
שבר
shabar
Break or break apart; in the grain-trade sense, buy or deal in grain.
The word behind “buy” food belongs to a family that holds breaking and grain provisions together. English renders it as a plain transaction, while the Hebrew retains the grain-trade texture of what is being acquired.
ALSO GROWS
shavar: Break, shatter.
שָׁבַר
This familiar sense of the root sits alongside its grain-trading sense in the food-purchase verb.
shever: Grain, provisions.
שֶׁבֶר
This noun names the grain or provisions bought under the food verb’s market sense.
THE PATTERN
Food and water are concrete needs met through tangible provision.
And you gave them bread from the heavens for their hunger, and brought out waters for them out of the rock for their thirst, and said to them to go in and possess the land which you had lifted your hand to give them.So do not be pulled apart, saying, "What shall we eat?" Or, "What shall we drink?" Or, "With what shall we be wrapped?"THE THREAD
You do not delight in slaughtered offering or gift. You bore through my ears. The rising offering and the offering for falling short you do not ask.The Hebrew root behind “buy” water here is also used in Psalm 40:6 for ears God has “opened.” The shared image lets the water purchase resonate with a channel made accessible to receive.
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