What Does Deuteronomy 31:10 Mean?
Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the appointed time of the year of letting go, in the feast of booths,
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
And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles,THE KEY
The calendar itself gives letting go an appointed place, returning it every seventh year.
THE MEANING
You meet release here as a recurring part of life: it arrives at a set time and is named alongside the Feast of Booths. Letting go belongs within the shared rhythm of gathering and shelter.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that release means disorder is undone: here, letting go belongs to an appointed rhythm.
THE ROOT
שְׁמִטָּה
shemittah
GROWS FROM
שׁמט
sh-m-t
To drop, let fall, or release.
“year of letting go” in this verse is shemittah. Shemittah comes from shamat, to let something drop; release is the letting fall of what was held, made a recurring season. The same root reaches the letting go of debts and the letting of land rest, so release touches both claims and control.
ALSO GROWS
shamat: To let drop or release.
שָׁמַט
The verb shows release as the act of loosening what is held.
tishmetennah: You shall let it go.
תִּשְׁמְטֶנָּה
In the seventh-year instruction about the land, the same root lets the field rest from cultivation.
מֹשֶׁה
Mosheh
GROWS FROM
משה
m-sh-h
To draw out.
“Moses” in this verse is Mosheh. The name in this sentence carries the image of being drawn out. That motion echoes the verse’s release: what is held can be let go and brought into open space.
ALSO GROWS
mashah: To draw out.
מָשָׁה
The verb carries the movement compressed into the name.
Mosheh: Moses, the one drawn out.
מֹשֶׁה
The name-nature echoes the movement from constriction toward release.
סֻכּוֹת
sukkot
GROWS FROM
סכך
s-k-k
To cover, screen, or shelter.
“booths” in this verse is sukkot. Sukkot names the shelters themselves: coverings that do not pretend to be permanent houses. Beside the release year, the image holds freedom and received shelter together, claims fall away while shelter remains.
ALSO GROWS
sukkah: A booth or temporary shelter.
סֻכָּה
The feast’s name points to the shelter gathered around the release year.
sakhakh: To cover or screen.
סָכַךְ
This root shows the shelter as a covering, giving the feast’s name a concrete image.
THE PATTERN
Release recurs as an appointed pattern across debts, land, and captivity.
At the end of every seven years you shall make a release.But in the seventh year you shall let it drop and leave it, that the poor of your people may eat, and what is left over the beasts of the field shall eat. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove.The breath of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the emptied. He has sent me to heal the shattered in heart, to herald release to the captives, and the return of sight for the blind, to send the crushed away into release.THE THREAD
And this is the word of the release. Every one whose hand has lent to his neighbor shall let it fall, and he shall not press it from his neighbor or from his brother, for it is called the LORD's release.The same Hebrew root, שׁמט (sh-m-t), appears in this instruction about releasing a debt. It opens the year of release as something concrete: a claim that had been held is allowed to fall.
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