What Does Deuteronomy 28:20 Mean?
The LORD shall send upon you the cursing, the panic, and the scattering shout, in all that you stretch out your hand to do, until you are destroyed, and until you perish swiftly, because of the evil of your deeds, by which you have let go of me.
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 LORD shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly; because of the wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me.THE KEY
The Hebrew repeats one root for what the LORD sends and for what your hand sets in motion, placing the calamity in the very field of your undertakings.
THE MEANING
When the LORD is forsaken, this verse speaks of disruption reaching every undertaking, cursing, vexation, and rebuke, until ruin comes quickly. It holds the force of its claim: the work is struck, and the person perishes swiftly.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that forsaking the LORD leaves the work of your hands untouched.
THE ROOT
יְשַׁלַּח
yeshallaḥ
GROWS FROM
שלח
Send, send forth, release, or stretch out.
“stretch out your hand to do” in this verse is yeshallaḥ. The verse uses this root both for the LORD sending calamity and for the “sending forth” of your hand in every undertaking. Hebrew folds the sending and the work your hand extends into one root, so the calamity reaches the very field your hand enters.
ALSO GROWS
mishlaḥ: A sending forth, or an undertaking.
מִשְׁלַח
It appears in the verse’s phrase about everything your hand sets itself to do, echoing the root used for what the LORD sends.
Shiloach: The name of a sent-forth watercourse.
שִׁלֹחַ
The name Siloam in John 9:7 is translated “Sent”; there, what is sent is connected with a man’s return to sight.
shulḥan: A table, where provision is spread out.
שֻׁלְחָן
The table carries the root’s sense of extending provision, showing that sending forth can also open into what is laid out to sustain life.
אָבַדְךָ
’āvadkha
GROWS FROM
אבד
Be lost, perish, or disappear.
“perish swiftly” in this verse is ’āvadkha. The threat is not only that your plans fail: the root holds both perishing and being lost. Paired with “quickly,” it presses the line toward swift ruin.
ALSO GROWS
’oved: One who is perishing or lost.
אֹבֵד
The same root appears in the phrase “a Syrian ready to perish,” showing that it can name a person on the edge of being lost.
’avaddon: Destruction or ruin.
אֲבַדּוֹן
This branch makes explicit the ruin carried within the verse’s warning of swift perishing.
THE PATTERN
What is sent forth reaches the field it enters, carrying either affliction or restoration.
For at this time I will send all my blows upon your heart, and upon your servants, and upon your people, so that you may perceive that there is none like me in all the earth.He sends his word and heals them, and slips them free from their pits.And he said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, the Sent. So he went and washed, and came seeing.THE THREAD
And he said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, the Sent. So he went and washed, and came seeing.Siloam, from the Hebrew root שלח (shalach), means “Sent,” the same root repeated in this verse for sending and the sending forth of the hand. Here, what is sent is water associated with sight restored; the root can carry ruin or open a way to see.
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