What Does Deuteronomy 28:68 Mean in the King James?
And the LORD shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships, by the way whereof I spake unto thee, Thou shalt see it no more again: and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man shall buy you.
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
Egypt is the narrow place of utter dispossession: you are put up for sale, yet no buyer appears.
THE MEANING
You are carried back into constriction by ships, placed among enemies, and held in bondage as a bondman or bondwoman. The sale brings no buyer, leaving you without a human purchaser to claim you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that being sold necessarily means someone will claim you or take you into another household: here, no one buys you.
THE ROOT
מִצְרַיִם
Mitsrayim
GROWS FROM
מצר
metsar
Narrow place, strait; constriction.
Mitzrayim carries the consonants of מֵצַר (metsar), “a narrow place,” and its ending evokes the dual: the two narrows. “Egypt again” thus carries the force of returning to constriction, now enacted through ships, enemy hands, and bondage.
ALSO GROWS
metsar: A narrow place or strait; a place of distress.
מֵצַר
This is the narrow-place image carried in Egypt’s name and echoed in the verse’s return to captivity.
Mitsrayim: Egypt; traditionally heard here as the two narrows.
מִצְרַיִם
The name gathers the passage’s return, confinement, and bondage into one image.
וְהִתְמַכַּרְתֶּם
vehitmakartem
GROWS FROM
מכר
makhar
Sell; transfer through a sale.
The sold person and the sale grow from the same root, placing bondage in the language of transfer between hands. Yet the verse immediately exposes the rupture in that transaction: the sale is spoken, and no buyer takes you.
ALSO GROWS
makhur: Sold.
מָכוּר
This form keeps the focus on the person handed over in the sale.
mimkar: A sale; something sold.
מִמְכָּר
The noun names the transaction itself, which the next phrase leaves without a buyer.
קֹנֶה
qoneh
GROWS FROM
קנה
qanah
Buy, acquire, possess.
“Buy” comes from קנה (qanah), the root of acquiring or possessing. Set beside the sale-root מכר (makhar), “sell,” the verse separates the two sides of a transaction: the selling happens, while no one appears to acquire you.
ALSO GROWS
qinyan: Acquisition or property.
קִנְיָן
It shows the possession implied by buying, the action absent from the verse’s final phrase.
miqneh: Possessions or livestock.
מִקְנֶה
This branch makes acquisition concrete: the buyer takes something into possession, but no buyer takes you.
THE PATTERN
Scripture names captivity as constriction and deliverance as being brought out into spaciousness.
I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place.And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.THE THREAD
I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place.The Hebrew opening, מִן־הַמֵּצַר (min-hammetsar, “from the narrow place”), shares the three consonants מצר with Mitzrayim’s narrowing name. Deuteronomy turns you back into the narrow place; the psalm opens the opposite movement, as the LORD sets the speaker in a large place.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us