What Does Deuteronomy 7:13 Mean?
He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain, your wine, and your oil, the young of your herd and the flocks of your sheep, in the land he swore to your fathers to give 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
And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee.THE KEY
Here, love is not only inward feeling: it takes shape as fruitfulness moving through womb, soil, food, herds, and land.
THE MEANING
You hear a promise in which love reaches bodily and material life: womb, soil, food, herds, and land. Blessing and multiplication join generational fruitfulness to daily provision, while the verse keeps that promise bound to the named land and inheritance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
God’s love concerns only inward life and has nothing to do with bodies or material provision.
THE ROOT
רֶחֶם
reḥem
GROWS FROM
ר־ח־ם
r-ḥ-m
Womb and compassion belong to the same root family.
The word for womb shares its root with the words for compassion. That hidden link puts the verse’s promise of fruitfulness inside a language of embodied care.
ALSO GROWS
raḥamim: compassion
רַחֲמִים
The shared root links the fruit of the womb with compassion.
raḥam: to have compassion
רָחַם
This verb shows the same root as an active movement of care.
רָבָה
rābâ
GROWS FROM
ר־ב־ה
r-b-h
Increase; become many.
“multiply” in this verse is rābâ. The root presents multiplication as an increase that spreads across life. Here it reaches both the person and the whole field of provision named in the verse.
ALSO GROWS
rav: many; abundant
רַב
This related form describes what has become plentiful.
hirbâ: to make many; to multiply
הִרְבָּה
This causative form makes the increase an expansion of life beyond itself.
בָּרַךְ
bārak
GROWS FROM
ב־ר־ך
b-r-k
To bless; the same consonants also appear in a word for knee.
“bless” in this verse is bārak. The verse repeats blessing toward you and over the fruit of womb and land, tying the word to concrete increase. Its shared form with the word for knee also carries a bodily image of bending and receiving.
ALSO GROWS
berekh: knee
בֶּרֶךְ
The shared consonants give blessing a bodily association with bending.
berakhah: blessing
בְּרָכָה
This noun names the blessing that the verse depicts spreading through the whole field of life.
THE PATTERN
Blessing is pictured as life reproducing and provision increasing through bodies, soil, food, and herds.
And God blessed them, saying, "Bear fruit and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds multiply upon the earth."He blesses them, and they multiply greatly; and he does not let their cattle grow few.Now the one who supplies seed to the sower supplies bread for eating, and fills out your sown seed, and makes grow the fruits of your alignment.THE THREAD
And God blessed them, saying, "Bear fruit and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds multiply upon the earth."The Hebrew root ר־ב־ה (r-b-h, increase and become many) appears in both verses. Genesis joins multiplication with fruitfulness; here, that same movement reaches womb, land, food, and herds.
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