What Does Deuteronomy 29:20 Mean in the King James?
The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.
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 does not merely fall on the man: the Hebrew says it crouches on him, making judgment a settled presence.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks now as a stark portrait of a hidden turning becoming an exposed condition: the LORD’s anger flares, the curse settles on the person, and his name is wiped from beneath heaven. The erased name is the person’s shem (שֵׁם, shem), his nature as it is known and remembered, so the judgment reaches identity, not only circumstance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the claim, “I shall have peace,” while a person keeps following the stubbornness of his own heart; this verse says that imagined immunity does not hold.
THE ROOT
וְרָבְצָה
veravtsah
GROWS FROM
רבץ
r-b-ṣ
Crouch, lie down, or settle into a resting place.
“lie upon” in this verse is veravtsah. The Hebrew verb pictures more than a passing burden: the curse crouches or settles on the person. The same root describes sin crouching at a threshold in Genesis 4:7; here that poised image becomes a settled consequence.
ALSO GROWS
rovetz: Crouching or lying down.
רֹבֵץ
Genesis 4:7 uses this form for sin lying at the door, showing the same root’s image of a force poised to take hold.
mirbats: A resting place, lair, or fold.
מִרְבָּץ
This related noun carries the sense of a place where something settles, illuminating the curse’s arrival as a state that takes hold.
אַף
af
GROWS FROM
אנף
ʾ-n-p̄
The verbal root means to be angry; the related noun אַף names the nose or nostril and also means anger or heat.
Here af is paired with smoke and jealousy, carrying anger as heat at the nostrils rather than as an abstract verdict. The image makes judgment flare visibly before the verse names the curse settling on the man.
ALSO GROWS
af: Nostril; also anger or heat.
אַף
This is the word translated “anger” in the verse, preserving the bodily image beneath the English rendering.
anaph: To be angry or flare up.
אָנַף
The related verb reveals the movement from nostril to anger: the verse’s smoke belongs to a flare of heat.
קִנְאָתוֹ
qin’ato
GROWS FROM
קנא
q-n-ʾ
Be zealous or burn with jealous ardor.
The noun names an ardor strong enough to join the anger’s smoke, so the verse depicts the LORD’s response as consuming intensity. Together, smoke and jealousy make the anger embodied and immediate.
ALSO GROWS
qin’ah: Jealousy or zeal.
קִנְאָה
This noun names the ardor expressed in the verse’s image of smoke.
qanna’: Jealous or zealous.
קַנָּא
This related form carries the same force of ardent attachment that underlies the verse’s jealousy.
THE PATTERN
What a person harbors or sows takes outward form and produces a consequence that can be seen.
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.THE THREAD
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.Deuteronomy 29:20 and Genesis 4:7 use the same Hebrew root רבץ (ravats), “crouch, lie down.” In Genesis, sin crouches at the door; here the curse lies on the man, moving the image from a force poised at the threshold to a settled consequence.
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