What Does Deuteronomy 14:28 Mean in the King James?
At the end of three years thou shalt bring forth all the tithe of thine increase the same year, and shalt lay it up within thy gates:
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The increase that comes into your hands is given a place at the gate, where it can become provision for the whole community.
THE MEANING
A measured portion of what comes into your hands is settled within the gates, where the community can reach it. The next verse names those who eat and are satisfied, showing that the stored portion serves shared sufficiency.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that what comes through your hands belongs only to you; the next verse shows the portion reaching those without an inheritance, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow.
THE ROOT
וְהִנַּחְתָּ
wə-hinnaḥtā
GROWS FROM
נוח
Rest, settle, come to rest.
The phrase translated “lay it up” carries the root idea of bringing something to rest or settling it. That shade makes the gate a resting place for provision, where what has accumulated is held near the community that needs it.
ALSO GROWS
nûaḥ: Rest, settle, come to rest.
נוּחַ
It shows the underlying action in “lay it up”: the portion is made to settle in a particular place.
menûḥāh: Rest, resting place.
מְנוּחָה
This related form echoes the verse’s picture of provision given a settled place within the gates.
תְּבוּאָה
tevuʾāh
GROWS FROM
בוא
Come, enter.
The word for increase belongs to the family of “coming in”: it presents produce as what arrives. In this verse, that arriving abundance has a route onward, so its movement through your hands does not end there.
ALSO GROWS
bôʾ: Come, enter.
בּוֹא
The root makes the idea of increase sound like an arrival into one’s life.
tevuʾāh: Produce, income; what comes in.
תְּבוּאָה
The verse’s word for increase retains that sense of what has come in and can now be shared.
מַעֲשֵׂר
maʿăśēr
GROWS FROM
עשר
Ten; take or give a tenth.
The Hebrew name for the tithe carries the count ten within it, framing the shared portion as a measured part of the whole. The nearby verb for tithing grows from the same consonants, joining the measure and the act in one word-family.
ALSO GROWS
ʿeśer: Ten.
עֶשֶׂר
The number is audible inside the word for tithe, revealing its measured relation to the whole.
ʿāśar: Take or give a tenth; tithe.
עָשַׂר
This verb shares the root and names the act of setting aside that measured portion.
THE PATTERN
Provision is gathered in measured portions, placed within reach, and distributed so that people in the community can be satisfied.
And the Levite, (because he hath no part nor inheritance with thee,) and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat and be satisfied; that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hand which thou doest.Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.THE THREAD
And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.The Hebrew verb rendered “rested” comes from the same root נוח (n-w-ḥ; nûaḥ), meaning “to rest or settle,” as “lay it up” here. The ark comes to rest carrying life through the flood; here, increase is settled within the gates so it can sustain life in the community.
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