What Does Deuteronomy 28:38 Mean?
You shall bring out much seed into the field, and gather but little in; for the locust shall devour it.
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
Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather but little in; for the locust shall consume it.THE KEY
The Hebrew name for locust is tied to increase, so the verse’s brutal turn is that what multiplies becomes the force consuming the harvest.
THE MEANING
Much seed enters the field, but little comes back because the locust consumes it. The verse holds open the gap between what is planted and what is gathered: what grows can devour the expected yield before it becomes provision.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that effort guarantees a matching return falls away here: what is sown can be consumed between planting and gathering.
THE ROOT
אַרְבֶּה
arbeh
GROWS FROM
רבה
to increase, become many
אַרְבֶּה (arbeh, locust) is associated with רָבָה (rabah, increase), placing the creature in the language of multiplication. Here the force that becomes many consumes what was planted.
ALSO GROWS
rabah: to increase, grow numerous
רָבָה
The locust’s name echoes the process of becoming many.
hirbah: to multiply, make many
הִרְבָּה
This form gives the same root an active sense: multiplication, turned here toward the swarm that consumes the crop.
יַחְסְלֶנּוּ
yaḥsallennu
GROWS FROM
חסל
to consume, finish off
“devour” in this verse is yaḥsallennu. The verb translated consume comes from חָסַל (ḥāsal, consume), a root that also gives חָסִיל (ḥāsîl, a locust or cankerworm). The language folds the act of devouring into the naming of a devourer, making the loss sound as concrete as the swarm.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāsal: to consume, finish off
חָסַל
This is the action that breaks the expected movement from planting to gathering.
ḥāsîl: a locust or cankerworm
חָסִיל
A creature associated with eating away the crop shares the root of the verse’s word for consuming.
THE PATTERN
What is sown can be consumed before it becomes a harvest.
For they covered the eye of the whole land, so that it went dark. They ate all the grass of the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left, and no green remained in the trees, or in the grass of the field, through all the land of Egypt.What the shearer has left, the locust has eaten; and what the locust has left, the lapper has eaten; and what the lapper has left, the gnawer has eaten.A sower went out to sow his seed, and as he sowed, some fell beside the road, and it was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it.THE THREAD
What the shearer has left, the locust has eaten; and what the locust has left, the lapper has eaten; and what the lapper has left, the gnawer has eaten.Joel repeats אַרְבֶּה (arbeh, locust), the same word used here, and names חָסִיל (ḥāsîl, cankerworm), from the same word family as חָסַל (ḥāsal, consume). The root connection joins the eater to the act of eating and extends the single loss into a chain.
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