What Does Deuteronomy 28:60 Mean in the King James?
Moreover he will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt, which thou wast afraid of; and they shall cleave unto thee.
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 verse pictures the feared disease not merely visiting, but adhering to the person.
THE MEANING
Here, the feared illness is a continuing presence, clinging to the body and narrowing the life it occupies. The name Egypt carries the image of constriction, so the verse holds affliction as something that grips and closes in.
THE ROOT
וְדָבְקוּ
ve-davequ
GROWS FROM
דבק
d-b-q
To cling, adhere, or stay joined.
“cleave” in this verse is ve-davequ. The root names sticking fast: the feared disease adheres and remains. The same root describes a lasting bond to a spouse or to God, so the word carries attachment itself; what it clings to gives that attachment its force.
ALSO GROWS
dāvaq: To cling or cleave.
דָּבַק
This is the same verb used when a person cleaves to a spouse, showing that the word describes a lasting bond, not just brief contact.
haddevaqim: The joints or joined parts of armor.
הַדְּבָקִים
The root also names the places where pieces meet, giving its image of attachment a concrete, bodily edge.
מַדְוֵי
madve
GROWS FROM
דוה
d-w-h
To be sick, weak, or languishing.
“diseases” in this verse is madve. This word belongs to a family that also describes being sick, faint, or languishing. The illness is heard not only as a diagnosis, but as a condition that wears down the person.
ALSO GROWS
dāveh: Sick, weak, or languishing.
דָּוֶה
This form describes a person in a state of languishing, extending the verse’s disease language to the person’s whole condition.
dawwāy: Sick or faint.
דַּוָּי
Isaiah uses this related word for a heart grown faint, showing how this root can describe illness as a weakening of the whole person.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
צרר
ts-r-r
To bind, constrict, or make narrow.
Mitzrayim carries the image of tzar, narrowness, with the dual ending -ayim: the two narrows. So “the diseases of Egypt” evokes affliction that wounds and closes in.
ALSO GROWS
tsar: Narrow, tight, or constricting.
צַר
This word carries the narrowness within the name Egypt into the verse’s image of illness closing in.
mētsar: A narrow place or distress.
מֵצַר
Psalm 118 uses this word for distress before describing being brought into a broad place, giving constriction an opposite movement.
THE PATTERN
Cleave names a durable attachment: what adheres to a life, or what a life adheres to, shapes what follows.
The leprosy therefore of Naaman shall cleave unto thee, and unto thy seed for ever. And he went out from his presence a leper as white as snow.Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.THE THREAD
That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.The same Hebrew verb for disease clinging in Deuteronomy 28:60 describes a person cleaving to God here. The root names attachment itself; in this verse, the one cleaved to is called “thy life.”
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