What Does Deuteronomy 8:13 Mean?
And when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold grow, and all that you have multiplies;
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 when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied;THE KEY
Herds, precious metals, and every possession swell under the same Hebrew root, while the lines that follow expose the inward narrowing that can hide inside outward abundance.
THE MEANING
Increase touches living stock, stored wealth, and everything the reader holds; the repeated root gathers it all into one widening movement. Yet outward fullness can accompany an inward narrowing when the heart credits itself and forgets its source.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is, “My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth.” The lines that follow locate the power to gain wealth in God, undoing the claim of self-sufficiency.
THE ROOT
יִרְבֶּה
yirbeh
GROWS FROM
רבה
r-b-h
To become many, grow, or increase.
“multiply” in this verse is yirbeh. This root appears three times: with the herds, with silver and gold, and with all that is held. Hebrew gathers these different forms of prosperity into one continuing increase; the lines that follow show how that fullness can tempt the heart to claim it made itself.
ALSO GROWS
harbeh: Much, many; greatly.
הַרְבֵּה
This form carries the same root’s sense of abundance, echoing how the verse’s increase spreads from herds to wealth and then to everything possessed.
hirbah: He increased; he caused to multiply.
הִרְבָּה
The causative form makes the root’s movement explicit: something is made to increase, which resonates with the surrounding reminder that the power behind wealth is received.
THE PATTERN
Increase fills the field named in the verse, whether that field is living creatures, humanity on earth, or a growing assembly.
And God blessed them, saying, "Bear fruit and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds multiply upon the earth."And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Bear fruit and multiply, and fill the earth, and tread it under your foot, and rule over the fish of the sea, and over the winged of the heavens, and over every living thing that creeps upon the earth."And the word of God grew, and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly, and a great crowd of the priests heard and responded by leaning their weight.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 same root, רָבָה (rabah), describes the multiplying fish and birds there and the multiplying herds here. Its use across living creatures, wealth, and every possession reveals one seed of increase moving through very different fields.
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