What Does Deuteronomy 3:17 Mean in the King James?
The plain also, and Jordan, and the coast thereof, from Chinnereth even unto the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, under Ashdoth-pisgah eastward.
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
Jordan carries the sense “descender,” so the verse maps the land through a river in motion and the boundary beside it.
THE MEANING
The verse gives you a way to see an expanse as more than a blank stretch: the Jordan descends, its boundary follows, and the salt sea marks the far reach. Space comes into focus through movement and edge.
THE ROOT
יַרְדֵּן
Yarden
GROWS FROM
ירד
y-r-d
To descend, go down.
English gives Jordan as a proper name, but Yarden carries the consonants of yarad, “to descend.” The name puts movement inside the map: the land’s extent is traced along a descending course.
ALSO GROWS
yarad: To descend or go down.
יָרַד
The verb behind the river’s name makes the landscape’s downward course audible in the verse.
vatored: She lowered or let down, as Rebekah does with her pitcher in Genesis 24:18.
וַתֹּרֶד
This form shares the same root and shows that yarad can describe lowering something along a downward path.
גְּבוּל
Gevul
GROWS FROM
גבל
g-b-l
To border or set a limit.
“Coast, boundary” in this verse is Gevul. The word translated “coast” is gevul, a boundary or territory. Its related verb means to set bounds, so the verse’s edge reads as a defined limit rather than a vague shoreline.
ALSO GROWS
higbil: To set bounds, as in Exodus 19:12.
הִגְבִּיל
This verb shares the root and makes explicit the act of marking off a limit.
gevul: A border, boundary, or territory.
גְּבוּל
This is the word used for the land’s boundary here, linking the river’s course to the edge of the region.
THE PATTERN
An expanse takes shape when its bounds mark how far it reaches.
Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth.And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed?And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;THE THREAD
And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee.Here the Hebrew word rendered “coast” is gevul, “boundary”; in Exodus, the same word names the bounds set from sea to river. The shared word connects both passages to a way of seeing land through its defined limits.
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