What Does Deuteronomy 28:60 Mean?
And he will turn back upon you all the weakness of Egypt that you feared, and they will cling to you.
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
Moreover he will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt, which thou wast afraid of; and they shall cleave unto thee.THE KEY
The verse pictures the feared disease not merely visiting, but adhering to the person.
THE MEANING
Here, the feared illness is a continuing presence, clinging to the body and narrowing the life it occupies. The name Egypt carries the image of constriction, so the verse holds affliction as something that grips and closes in.
THE ROOT
וְדָבְקוּ
ve-davequ
GROWS FROM
דבק
d-b-q
To cling, adhere, or stay joined.
“cling” in this verse is ve-davequ. The root names sticking fast: the feared disease adheres and remains. The same root describes a lasting bond to a spouse or to God, so the word carries attachment itself; what it clings to gives that attachment its force.
ALSO GROWS
dāvaq: To cling or cleave.
דָּבַק
This is the same verb used when a person cleaves to a spouse, showing that the word describes a lasting bond, not just brief contact.
haddevaqim: The joints or joined parts of armor.
הַדְּבָקִים
The root also names the places where pieces meet, giving its image of attachment a concrete, bodily edge.
מַדְוֵי
madve
GROWS FROM
דוה
d-w-h
To be sick, weak, or languishing.
“weakness” in this verse is madve. This word belongs to a family that also describes being sick, faint, or languishing. The illness is heard not only as a diagnosis, but as a condition that wears down the person.
ALSO GROWS
dāveh: Sick, weak, or languishing.
דָּוֶה
This form describes a person in a state of languishing, extending the verse’s disease language to the person’s whole condition.
dawwāy: Sick or faint.
דַּוָּי
Isaiah uses this related word for a heart grown faint, showing how this root can describe illness as a weakening of the whole person.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
צרר
ts-r-r
To bind, constrict, or make narrow.
Mitzrayim carries the image of tzar, narrowness, with the dual ending -ayim: the two narrows. So “the diseases of Egypt” evokes affliction that wounds and closes in.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: Narrow, tight, or constricting.
צַר
This word carries the narrowness within the name Egypt into the verse’s image of illness closing in.
mētsar: A narrow place or distress.
מֵצַר
Psalm 118 uses this word for distress before describing being brought into a broad place, giving constriction an opposite movement.
THE PATTERN
Cleave names a durable attachment: what adheres to a life, or what a life adheres to, shapes what follows.
Therefore the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you, and to your seed for the ages. And he went out from before his face a leper white as snow.Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother, and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.Let love be without a mask. Recoil from what is evil; cling to what is good.THE THREAD
That you may love the LORD your God, and that you may hear and respond to his voice, and that you may cling to him; for he is your life, and the lengthening of your days; that you may settle upon the ground the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.The same Hebrew verb for disease clinging in Deuteronomy 28:60 describes a person cleaving to God here. The root names attachment itself; in this verse, the one cleaved to is called “thy life.”
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