What Does Deuteronomy 4:38 Mean?
To drive out nations from before you, greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is this day.
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
To drive out nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance, as it is this day.THE KEY
The Hebrew root behind “drive out” can also mean “possess”, binding expulsion and inheritance into one transfer of land.
THE MEANING
You meet inheritance here as a transfer with two sides: nations stronger than Israel are driven out, and Israel is brought into their land. The land is given as a portion, so possession is not presented as proof that Israel is stronger. The verse leaves the cost visible: the inheritance is another people’s land before it is Israel’s.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that possession proves you were stronger than those who held the place before: Israel is brought in and given the land while its occupants are described as mightier.
THE ROOT
לְהוֹרִישׁ
ləhorîš
GROWS FROM
י־ר־שׁ
Possess or take possession; in the causative form, dispossess or drive out.
The English “drive out” hides that יָרַשׁ (yārash) can also mean “possess” or “inherit.” The verse uses נַחֲלָה (naḥălāh, “inheritance”) for what is received, while the root behind “drive out” links removal and possession across its branches.
ALSO GROWS
yārash: Possess, take possession, or inherit; in some forms, dispossess.
יָרַשׁ
The same root can describe the removal of one holder and the possession of another.
môrāšāh: Heritage, inherited possession.
מוֹרָשָׁה
This word from the same root names the land as an inheritance, joining the promise of possession to the act of dispossession.
נַחֲלָה
naḥălāh
GROWS FROM
נ־ח־ל
Inherit or receive as an allotted possession; inheritance, portion.
“inheritance” in this verse is naḥălāh. נַחֲלָה (naḥălāh) names the portion received, giving the transfer a distinct focus from the dispossession expressed by יָרַשׁ (yārash). The verse holds both together: removal on one side of the transfer, an inherited holding on the other.
ALSO GROWS
nāḥal: Inherit or take possession.
נָחַל
The verb names receiving a possession; the verse uses its related noun for the land received.
naḥălāh: Inheritance, allotted portion, or holding.
נַחֲלָה
The noun makes clear that what is given becomes Israel’s assigned portion.
לָתֵת
latet
GROWS FROM
נ־ת־ן
Give, set, or place.
“to give” in this verse is latet. The root of “give” also carries the sense of setting or placing. The land is both a gift and the place where Israel is set.
ALSO GROWS
nātan: Give, set, or place.
נָתַן
The root carries the giver’s act of giving and placing into the land.
mattānāh: Gift.
מַתָּנָה
This branch makes the bestowed character of the land explicit.
THE PATTERN
In this land-transfer pattern, Israel’s inheritance is described through the removal of its occupants and the assignment of their land to Israel.
By small measures I will drive them out from before you, until you are fruitful and take hold of the land.You, with your hand, drove out the nations and planted them; you broke the peoples and sent them away.And when he had pulled down seven nations in the land of Canaan, he divided their land to them by lot.THE THREAD
And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD.Exodus names the land מוֹרָשָׁה (môrāšāh, “heritage”), from the same י־ר־שׁ (y-r-sh) root behind “drive out” here. That root links the promised possession with the removal that makes room for it.
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