What Does Deuteronomy 28:19 Mean?
Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed when you go out.
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
Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out.THE KEY
The curse reaches both thresholds: arrival and departure fall under the same verdict.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks a severe condition across movement itself: coming in and going out are both named under the curse. Neither threshold is offered as refuge; the repeated verdict spans both directions.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that one threshold offers escape: the verse places the same curse on both coming in and going out.
THE ROOT
אָרוּר
arur
GROWS FROM
א־ר־ר
ʾ-r-r
To curse or declare under a curse.
The form אָרוּר (arur) names the cursed state, while מְאֵרָה (me’erah) names a curse. Repeating the verdict at both thresholds makes the condition span movement from both sides.
ALSO GROWS
arur: Cursed; under a curse.
אָרוּר
This is the repeated state assigned to the person at both entry and exit.
me'erah: A curse.
מְאֵרָה
The related noun names the curse itself, while this verse repeats the state it creates.
בְּבֹאֶךָ
bevo’ekha
GROWS FROM
ב־ו־א
b-w-ʾ
To come, arrive, or enter.
“comest in” in this verse is bevo’ekha. The Hebrew phrase means “in your coming,” placing the verdict at the crossing into arrival. Beside the separate root for going out, it helps the verse name both directions of movement.
ALSO GROWS
mavo: Entrance or approach.
מָבוֹא
This noun from the same root makes the threshold sense of coming in visible.
bi'ah: Coming or entry.
בִּיאָה
This related noun also names the act of arriving or entering.
בְּצֵאתֶךָ
betsetekha
GROWS FROM
י־צ־א
y-ṣ-ʾ
To go out, emerge, or depart.
“goest out” in this verse is betsetekha. The phrase means “in your going out”; its root also forms words for departure and for bringing someone out. Here, outward movement falls under the same verdict as entry, spanning the whole passage from coming to going.
ALSO GROWS
yetzi'ah: Departure or going out.
יְצִיאָה
This noun preserves the outward movement named in the verse.
hotsi: To bring or lead out.
הוֹצִיא
This causative form belongs to the same root family of going forth; the verse places the outward direction under the repeated verdict.
THE PATTERN
The paired language of coming in and going out treats movement as a whole span, and the verse names what accompanies that span.
Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed when you go out.The LORD watches over your going out and your coming in, from now and to the ages.And he was with them, coming in and going out at Jerusalem.THE THREAD
Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed when you go out.The same threshold formula carries the opposite verdict: both coming and going are blessed there, where here both are cursed. The paired verses make clear that the whole span of movement is named, while the condition accompanying it changes.
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