What Does Deuteronomy 28:18 Mean in the King James?
Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.
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 curse reaches every source of increase at once: body, soil, cattle, and sheep.
THE MEANING
When a life is under curse, the damage reaches bodily generation, the yield of soil, and the offspring of herds and flocks. Intimate life and ordinary provision stand under the same condition, showing how thoroughly every source of increase can be struck.
THE ROOT
פְּרִי
peri
GROWS FROM
פ־ר־ה
p-r-h
To bear fruit, become fruitful, increase.
The same noun פְּרִי (peri, fruit or produce) names both the body’s fruit and the land’s fruit, linking human generation and harvest as one field of increase. The curse reaches the capacity of living sources to bring forth.
ALSO GROWS
parah: To bear fruit; to be fruitful.
פָּרָה
The verb makes the root’s movement clear: fruit is what a living source brings forth.
Efrayim: Ephraim; a name associated with being made fruitful.
אֶפְרַיִם
The name carries the same fruitfulness root, showing how increase can become part of a person’s nature and future.
אָרוּר
arur
GROWS FROM
א־ר־ר
ʾ-r-r
To curse; to place under a curse.
“cursed” in this verse is arur. The verse lays the curse across repeated forms of increase: body, soil, cattle, and sheep. The same root can fall directly on the ground, joining the curse to the sources that sustain life.
ALSO GROWS
arurah: Cursed, in the feminine form.
אֲרוּרָה
In Genesis 3:17, this form describes the ground as cursed, echoing the way the curse here reaches the land’s fruit.
me'erah: Curse; a condition of being cursed.
מְאֵרָה
This noun from the same root shows the curse as a condition that can settle over a person’s provision.
THE PATTERN
Scripture makes a life’s condition visible through what its living sources can or cannot bring forth.
And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird, from the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception.And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.THE THREAD
And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;Genesis 3:17 shares the curse-root א־ר־ר (ʾ-r-r, to curse) and the ground word אֲדָמָה (adamah, ground or soil) with this verse. There the curse rests on the ground; here its reach widens to the body’s fruit and the increase of herds and flocks.
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