What Does Deuteronomy 31:10 Mean in the King James?
And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles,
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 calendar itself gives letting go an appointed place, returning it every seventh year.
THE MEANING
You meet release here as a recurring part of life: it arrives at a set time and is named alongside the Feast of Booths. Letting go belongs within the shared rhythm of gathering and shelter.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that release means disorder is undone: here, letting go belongs to an appointed rhythm.
THE ROOT
שְׁמִטָּה
shemittah
GROWS FROM
שׁמט
sh-m-t
To drop, let fall, or release.
Shemittah comes from shamat, to let something drop; release is the letting fall of what was held, made a recurring season. The same root reaches the letting go of debts and the letting of land rest, so release touches both claims and control.
ALSO GROWS
shamat: To let drop or release.
שָׁמַט
The verb shows release as the act of loosening what is held.
tishmetennah: You shall let it go.
תִּשְׁמְטֶנָּה
In the seventh-year instruction about the land, the same root lets the field rest from cultivation.
מֹשֶׁה
Mosheh
GROWS FROM
משה
m-sh-h
To draw out.
“Moses” in this verse is Mosheh. The name in this sentence carries the image of being drawn out. That motion echoes the verse’s release: what is held can be let go and brought into open space.
ALSO GROWS
mashah: To draw out.
מָשָׁה
The verb carries the movement compressed into the name.
Mosheh: Moses, the one drawn out.
מֹשֶׁה
The name-nature echoes the movement from constriction toward release.
סֻכּוֹת
sukkot
GROWS FROM
סכך
s-k-k
To cover, screen, or shelter.
“tabernacles” in this verse is sukkot. Sukkot names the shelters themselves: coverings that do not pretend to be permanent houses. Beside the release year, the image holds freedom and received shelter together, claims fall away while shelter remains.
ALSO GROWS
sukkah: A booth or temporary shelter.
סֻכָּה
The feast’s name points to the shelter gathered around the release year.
sakhakh: To cover or screen.
סָכַךְ
This root shows the shelter as a covering, giving the feast’s name a concrete image.
THE PATTERN
Release recurs as an appointed pattern across debts, land, and captivity.
At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release.But the seventh year thou shalt let it rest and lie still; that the poor of thy people may eat: and what they leave the beasts of the field shall eat. In like manner thou shalt deal with thy vineyard, and with thy oliveyard.The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,THE THREAD
And this is the manner of the release: Every creditor that lendeth ought unto his neighbour shall release it; he shall not exact it of his neighbour, or of his brother; because it is called the LORD’s release.The same Hebrew root, שׁמט (sh-m-t), appears in this instruction about releasing a debt. It opens the year of release as something concrete: a claim that had been held is allowed to fall.
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