What Does Deuteronomy 29:8 Mean in the King James?
And we took their land, and gave it for an inheritance unto the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half tribe of Manasseh.
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
Here, inheritance is land taken from one people and assigned to another.
THE MEANING
The verse makes inheritance concrete for the reader now: a possession can be called a gift to its recipients while remaining land taken from its former holders. The assignment and the dispossession are one transfer, both named in the verse.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
An inheritance is always a clean gift, untouched by anyone else’s loss.
THE ROOT
נַחֲלָה
naḥălāh
GROWS FROM
נחל
n-ḥ-l
To inherit or possess; in a causative form, to give or assign an inheritance.
This root holds both receiving possession and assigning it to someone else. The verse’s inheritance is therefore not abstract belonging: it is the land taken from others and allotted to these tribes.
ALSO GROWS
nāḥal: To inherit or take possession.
נָחַל
The verb makes inheritance an act of acquiring or holding what has been allotted.
hinḥîl: To cause someone to inherit; to allot an inheritance.
הִנְחִיל
This causative form brings the transfer into view: someone assigns the possession that another receives.
THE PATTERN
Scripture names inheritance as land transferred into someone’s possession, with the taking and prior inhabitants still visible.
And Moses gave unto them, even to the children of Gad, and to the children of Reuben, and unto half the tribe of Manasseh the son of Joseph, the kingdom of Sihon king of the Amorites, and the kingdom of Og king of Bashan, the land, with the cities thereof in the coasts, even the cities of the country round about.And gave them the lands of the heathen: and they inherited the labour of the people;Which also our fathers that came after brought in with Jesus into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out before the face of our fathers, unto the days of David;THE THREAD
For the LORD’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.The same root, נחל (n-ḥ-l), names inheritance here and in the phrase “his inheritance.” But there the inheritance is a people, while this verse describes land allotted to tribes after it is taken.
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