What Does Deuteronomy 16:13 Mean in the King James?
Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine:
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 Hebrew gathers the crop with a root that also names an assembly, while the feast itself is named from a root meaning cover.
THE MEANING
Your gathered yield becomes the threshold of a seven-day feast in temporary shelters: abundance is received as a season to inhabit. The verse holds fullness and impermanence together, placing grain and wine beneath a dwelling that can be raised and taken down.
THE ROOT
בְּאָסְפְּךָ
be’asphekha
GROWS FROM
אסף
To gather, collect, bring in.
“gathered” in this verse is be’asphekha. The Hebrew verb for gathering the harvest comes from אסף (asaph), meaning to gather or collect. The same root also names an assembly, opening a link between bringing in the yield and gathering into the feast.
ALSO GROWS
asif: Ingathering; harvest season.
אָסִיף
Exodus calls the end-of-year harvest feast the Feast of Ingathering, using a word from the same root.
asifah: Gathering; assembly.
אֲסֵפָה
The root also names people gathered together, echoing how gathered produce becomes the setting for a feast.
הַסֻּכּוֹת
hasukkot
GROWS FROM
סכך
To cover, screen, or shelter.
“tabernacles” in this verse is hasukkot. סֻכּוֹת (sukkot), booths or temporary shelters, grows from a root of covering. The verse sets the fullness of the harvest beneath a covering that is temporary, holding abundance and impermanence in the same feast.
ALSO GROWS
sukkah: Booth; temporary shelter.
סֻכָּה
The feast’s name points to the shelter in which its days are lived.
sakhakh: To cover; to overshadow.
סָכַךְ
This verb reveals the covering carried inside the name of the booths.
THE PATTERN
The harvest feast becomes a recurring setting where provision and human need are held together.
And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the LORD seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath.In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.THE THREAD
Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the LORD seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath.Both verses use forms of אסף (asaph, gather or collect) for bringing in the yield before a seven-day feast. Leviticus makes explicit the sequence Deuteronomy compresses: the land’s fruit is gathered, then the feast begins.
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