What Does Deuteronomy 28:30 Mean in the King James?
Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: thou shalt build an house, and thou shalt not dwell therein: thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not gather the grapes thereof.
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 repeated wound is being made to create a future that another person inhabits and enjoys.
THE MEANING
This verse names a future cut off at each point of fruition: the promised bond is violated, the builder is barred from the house, and the planter cannot claim the grapes. It speaks to the reader in the ache of doing the work for a life and watching its use pass to someone else.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that beginning a life guarantees you will get to inhabit it, or that work automatically secures its fruit; here, effort and enjoyment are severed.
THE ROOT
תְחַלְּלֶנּוּ
teḥallelennu
GROWS FROM
חלל
ḥ-l-l
To make common, to profane, to take something out of a set-apart state and put it to ordinary use.
The Hebrew verb rendered “gather” carries the sense of making the vineyard’s fruit available for ordinary use. The loss is not just failing to collect grapes; it is being denied the right to enjoy what has grown.
ALSO GROWS
ḥol: Common or ordinary; what is not set apart.
חֹל
This branch makes the denied harvest a question of access to what can be used and enjoyed.
ḥillēl: To profane or make common.
חִלֵּל
This verb shares the root of the vineyard word, exposing a connection between harvest and putting its fruit to use.
ḥillul: Profanation; treating something set apart as common.
חִלּוּל
It underscores that the vineyard’s fruit is present, yet its planter is barred from claiming it.
תֵשֵׁב
teshev
GROWS FROM
ישב
yashav
To sit, settle, remain, or dwell.
The Hebrew verb behind “dwell” also carries the sense of sitting and settling. The house can stand, yet its builder is denied a settled place within it.
ALSO GROWS
yoshev: One who sits, remains, or dwells; an inhabitant.
יֹשֵׁב
This branch puts a person inside the idea of dwelling: the loss is being denied a place to remain.
moshav: A dwelling place, settlement, or seat.
מוֹשָׁב
It shows the range from remaining in a place to having a settled place to call one’s own.
toshav: A resident or sojourner.
תּוֹשָׁב
This branch names the person whose place in a dwelling depends on being able to remain there.
THE PATTERN
Loss becomes total when a person works toward a future but is barred from its use and fruit.
Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?THE THREAD
And what man is he that hath planted a vineyard, and hath not yet eaten of it? let him also go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man eat of it.The Hebrew vineyard verb behind “gather” in this verse appears again in Deuteronomy 20:6, where the KJV renders it “hath not yet eaten of it.” The shared root reveals the same central loss: the planter is denied use and enjoyment of the vineyard’s fruit.
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