What Does Deuteronomy 28:35 Mean in the King James?

The LORD shall smite thee in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore botch that cannot be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head.

Deuteronomy 28:35 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The verse strikes the knees, the body-part whose Hebrew root also names blessing, then stretches the wound from foot to crown.

THE MEANING

This verse names bodily affliction as judgment: the strike lands in the knees and legs, and the sore reaches from foot to crown. No part lies outside its reach, and the wound is described as beyond healing.

THE ROOT

בִּרְכַּיִם

birkayim

GROWS FROM

ברך

b-r-k

Knee, bending or kneeling; the same root also means bless.

The Hebrew word for knees and the verb for blessing share the three consonants ⁨ברך⁩ (b-r-k), joining bodily bending and blessing in one word-family. Here, the place of bending is where the blow lands, so the blessing-word echoes inside the verse’s image of affliction.

ALSO GROWS

berekh: knee

בֶּרֶךְ

This singular form names the body-part struck in the verse’s opening image.

barakh: bless

בָּרַךְ

The same root makes blessing an echo within the word for the knees.

berakhah: blessing

בְּרָכָה

This noun carries the same root into the idea of blessing itself.

יַכְּכָה

yakkekha

GROWS FROM

נכה

n-k-h

Strike, smite, beat.

“smite” in this verse is yakkekha. This root names the striking and also appears in words for the blow that remains. It appears again in Job’s body-wide affliction, linking the verses through the act of striking as well as the extent of the wound.

ALSO GROWS

makkah: blow, wound, plague

מַכָּה

This noun shows how the root of striking also names the affliction produced by a blow.

mukkeh: stricken, wounded

מֻכֶּה

This form describes the person left bearing the strike.

לְהֵרָפֵא

leherafe

GROWS FROM

רפא

r-p-ʾ

Heal, restore.

“healed” in this verse is leherafe. The healing verb comes from ⁨רפא⁩ (rapha, heal), whose opening consonants echo ⁨רפה⁩ (raphah, release or let the hands drop). This verse closes that possibility by describing the wound as beyond healing.

ALSO GROWS

rophe: healer, physician

רֹפֵא

The root names the one who brings healing, a possibility this verse declares absent.

refu'ah: healing, cure

רְפוּאָה

This noun names the healing the verse says cannot reach the wound.

THE PATTERN

Scripture can make affliction’s full reach visible by tracing it across the body from foot to head.

So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.

Job 2:7 · KJVThe same strike-root and foot-to-head span describe Job’s body-wide affliction.

From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.

Isaiah 1:6 · KJVThe wounds extend from sole to head, leaving no part of the body outside the injury.

And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.

Luke 5:12 · KJVThe description “full of leprosy” places the whole body within the scope of the affliction.

THE THREAD

So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.

Job 2:7 · KJV

Both verses use the Hebrew strike-root ⁨נכה⁩ (n-k-h, strike) and describe an affliction stretching from foot to head. Deuteronomy names the LORD as the striker, while Job names Satan; the shared root and bodily image do not erase that difference.

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