What Does Deuteronomy 26:3 Mean in the King James?
And thou shalt go unto the priest that shall be in those days, and say unto him, I profess this day unto the LORD thy God, that I am come unto the country which the LORD sware unto our fathers for to give us.
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 land is not merely reached; it is named aloud as the gift an oath has made present.
THE MEANING
When a promise reaches the ground of your life, you can name both the arrival and its source. The verse holds what you have entered beside the promise that came before it, letting receiving and recognition occupy the same sentence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that reaching something makes it yours by achievement alone; the testimony names the arrival as a gift held within a sworn promise.
THE ROOT
לָתֵת
latet
GROWS FROM
נתן
The three-consonant root נתן (n-t-n; natan) means to give, set, or place.
“give” in this verse is latet. The land is described as something given, not merely a place the speaker has reached. Hebrew נתן also carries the sense of setting or placing, so the gift is something the speaker now inhabits.
ALSO GROWS
natan: Give, set, place.
נָתַן
This is the root in the verse’s “to give us”: the land is received and placed into the people’s life.
mattanah: Gift.
מַתָּנָה
This related word makes the giving concrete: what is entered can be recognized as a gift.
נִשְׁבַּע
nishbaʿ
GROWS FROM
שבע
The root שבע (sh-b-ʿ; shava) means to swear or bind oneself by an oath.
“sware” in this verse is nishbaʿ. The promise is bound to an oath before it becomes lived ground. The same consonants form שֶׁבַע (sheva), “seven”; Genesis 21:31 makes the oath-and-seven wordplay explicit in the name Beer-sheba.
ALSO GROWS
shevuah: Oath.
שְׁבוּעָה
The oath names the binding promise that the speaker says has now been given effect.
sheva: Seven.
שֶׁבַע
Its shared consonants with “oath” surface a Hebrew wordplay of binding; Beer-sheba makes that connection visible.
הִגַּדְתִּי
higgadti
GROWS FROM
נגד
The root נגד (n-g-d; nagad) means to make known, report, or declare.
The speaker does not leave arrival as an unspoken fact: “I profess” is a declaration made known before the LORD. The word gives the received land a public voice, bringing the promise into the present sentence.
ALSO GROWS
nagad: Tell, report, declare.
נָגַד
This is the root’s plain act of making something known, as the speaker does before the priest.
nagid: Leader, chief.
נָגִיד
This related form suggests one set in front; the declaration likewise sets the speaker’s arrival before the listener.
THE PATTERN
A promise becomes lived ground through giving, and its arrival can be recognized aloud.
And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.And the LORD gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers; and they possessed it, and dwelt therein.By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:THE THREAD
And the LORD gave unto Israel all the land which he sware to give unto their fathers; and they possessed it, and dwelt therein.Joshua names the same movement held inside this verse: the LORD swears to give, then gives, and the people inhabit the land. Deuteronomy 26:3 compresses that movement into present testimony: “I am come.”
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