What Does Deuteronomy 28:43 Mean?
The sojourner within you shall rise above you, higher and higher; and you shall go down, lower and lower.
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 stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low.THE KEY
The sojourner rises from within your midst while you descend, so the reversal begins inside the community, not at its border.
THE MEANING
This verse names a reversal of standing within a shared community: the sojourner living among you rises above you, while you descend lower and lower. The repeated ascent and descent make the reversal emphatic.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that being at home in a community guarantees staying above those who are strangers there is undone.
THE ROOT
הַגֵּר
haggēr
GROWS FROM
גור
To sojourn or reside among others as a newcomer.
The word describes someone living within the community, though marked as a sojourner. That makes the verse’s reversal intimate: the one called a stranger is already within your midst.
ALSO GROWS
gūr: To sojourn or dwell among others as a newcomer.
גּוּר
The verb shows the movement behind the noun: the stranger is someone who resides among a people.
gēr: A resident sojourner; a stranger living among a people.
גֵּר
This is the noun used in the verse, naming someone present within the community rather than outside it.
יַעֲלֶה
yaʿăleh
GROWS FROM
עלה
To go up, rise, or ascend.
“rise above” in this verse is yaʿăleh. The verse pairs the rising verb with a repeated word for upward movement, piling height onto height. Here the ascent is a change in standing: the sojourner rises above you.
ALSO GROWS
ʿōlāh: An offering that goes up; a burnt offering.
עֹלָה
Its name carries the root’s upward motion, while this verse applies that motion to a change in social rank.
maʿălāh: Ascent, upward direction, or step.
מַעֲלָה
This same-root word is repeated in the verse’s upward phrasing, emphasizing how high the sojourner rises.
תֵּרֵד
tērēd
GROWS FROM
ירד
To descend or go down.
“go down” in this verse is tērēd. The verse says you descend, placing the downward movement on you. Its repeated downward phrasing mirrors the sojourner’s ascent and makes the exchange of standing unmistakable.
ALSO GROWS
yōrēd: Descending; one who goes down.
יוֹרֵד
This form from the same root names the downward movement that the verse assigns to you.
hōrîd: To bring down or cause to descend.
הוֹרִיד
The causative form shows that the root can describe lowering as well as descending, giving the verse’s downward motion a broader range.
THE PATTERN
A reversal of rank can raise the one at the margins while bringing the established one low.
The LORD strips, and makes rich; he lays low, and lifts high.He has pulled the mighty down from their seats, and lifted up the low.THE THREAD
Do not press a sojourner, for you know his living soul, since you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.The repeated word for stranger is the same גֵּר (gēr), a sojourner living among a people. That shared word makes Deuteronomy’s reversal sharper: the one within the community is the very person this command names as vulnerable to oppression.
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