What Does Deuteronomy 21:10 Mean in the King James?
When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the LORD thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive,
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 uses the same root for taking captive and for the captives, making captivity itself the explicit outcome of conquest.
THE MEANING
The verse names a stark sequence: you go to war against your enemies, the LORD gives them into your hand, and you take captives. The repeated Hebrew root keeps both the act of capture and the people captured visible in the sentence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that victory is only a change of control: the stated result is people held captive.
THE ROOT
וְשָׁבִיתָ שִׁבְיוֹ
veshavita shivyo
GROWS FROM
שׁבה
shavah
to take captive
“taken them captive” in this verse is veshavita shivyo. The verb and its object grow from the same root: the wording is close to “you capture its captives.” That repetition places the people made captive, not just the victory, at the center of the verse.
ALSO GROWS
shavah: to take captive
שָׁבָה
This is the action named in the verse, rooted in the same three consonants as its object.
shevi: captivity; captives
שְׁבִי
The noun names the condition and the people produced by the act of capture.
sheviyah: captivity
שְׁבִיָּה
This related form carries the same root into the state of being held captive.
וּנְתָנוֹ
u-netano
GROWS FROM
נתן
to give, set, place
“delivered them into thine hands” in this verse is u-netano. The verb’s root means giving or placing: the verse presents the enemies as placed into your hand before it names their capture. The sequence holds the transfer of power and the human act that follows together.
ALSO GROWS
natan: to give, set, place
נָתַן
This is the verb used in the verse: the enemies are given into the hand.
mattan: gift
מַתָּן
This related noun shows the same root’s sense of something given; here, what is placed in the hand is control over captives.
THE PATTERN
Scripture names captivity as a condition experienced by people and describes deliverance as release from it.
Which executeth judgment for the oppressed: which giveth food to the hungry. The LORD looseth the prisoners:The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,THE THREAD
Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the LORD God might dwell among them.Both verses use forms of שׁבה (shavah, “to take captive”): Deuteronomy says you take captives, while the Psalm says God leads captivity captive. The same root that names people being captured here becomes an image of captivity itself being taken away.
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