What Does Deuteronomy 2:28 Mean in the King James?
Thou shalt sell me meat for money, that I may eat; and give me water for money, that I may drink: only I will pass through on my feet;
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
Forward movement through a narrow place begins with naming what sustains you and asking plainly for passage.
THE MEANING
You can need food and water without needing to possess the place you pass through. The way forward remains specific: provision is requested, its cost is named, and the traveler keeps moving on foot.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that movement requires control of the place: the speaker asks for sustenance and passage, not possession.
THE ROOT
אֶעֱבֹרָה
ʾeʿĕvōrāh
GROWS FROM
עבר
To cross over or pass beyond.
English “pass through” can sound like neutral movement, but this Hebrew word belongs to a family centered on crossing to the other side. “On my feet” makes the crossing a bounded passage, not a claim to settle or possess the place.
ALSO GROWS
ʿēver: Beyond, the other side.
עֵבֶר
The shared root keeps the far side in view: passage is movement across a boundary.
maʿavār: A crossing or passage.
מַעֲבָר
This related form names the crossing itself, revealing the threshold already inside “pass through.”
תִּתֶּן
titten
GROWS FROM
נתן
To give, set, or place.
“give” in this verse is titten. The root carries the concrete sense of placing something into another’s possession, which fits the request for water to be made available to the traveler. Its related word for a gift shares that seed, while the verse keeps the price explicit: the transfer here has terms.
ALSO GROWS
nātan: To give, set, or place.
נָתַן
The root’s range brings the physical act of placing water at someone’s disposal into the request.
mattānāh: A gift or present.
מַתָּנָה
This related form shows the same root’s movement of something from one hand or possession to another, even as this verse names payment.
THE PATTERN
A path through constricted circumstances remains open when what sustains the traveler is received along the way.
And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.THE THREAD
And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.Genesis uses the same root, עבר (ʿābar, to cross or pass over), for Abram’s movement through the land. It lets you hear “pass through” as a crossing word: movement across a place without making that place the traveler’s possession.
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