What Does Deuteronomy 4:48 Mean in the King James?
From Aroer, which is by the bank of the river Arnon, even unto mount Sion, which is Hermon,
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 English says “bank,” but the Hebrew names the Arnon’s edge as its “lip”, the boundary where the land begins.
THE MEANING
The verse sets a span before you: the Arnon’s lip at one end, Mount Sion, identified here as Hermon, at the other. A river’s edge and a mountain’s height mark one measurable reach.
THE ROOT
שְׂפַת
səfat
GROWS FROM
שׂפה
s-f-h
Lip; by extension, an edge or shore. The same Hebrew word also means language.
The verse locates the starting boundary at the river’s “lip,” a bodily image that English smooths into “bank.” Hebrew uses the same word for a lip, a shore, and language, holding those meanings together beneath the boundary named here.
ALSO GROWS
Lip: The lip of the mouth; also an edge.
שָׂפָה
The Arnon’s bank is described with the word for a lip, making the river’s edge the land’s starting line.
Shore: The edge of a body of water.
שָׂפָה
The same word marks a water’s boundary, linking this riverbank to the broader sense of a shore.
Language: Speech or language.
שָׂפָה
English separates “lip” and “language,” while Hebrew names both with one word; the verse’s physical edge belongs to that wider word.
THE PATTERN
A territory becomes visible when its endpoints are named.
And we took at that time out of the hand of the two kings of the Amorites the land that was on this side Jordan, from the river of Arnon unto mount Hermon;Now these are the kings of the land, which the children of Israel smote, and possessed their land on the other side Jordan toward the rising of the sun, from the river Arnon unto mount Hermon, and all the plain on the east:He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.THE THREAD
From Aroer, which is by the brink of the river of Arnon, and from the city that is by the river, even unto Gilead, there was not one city too strong for us: the LORD our God delivered all unto us:The same Hebrew word, שְׂפַת (səfat), appears here as “brink,” again naming Aroer at the Arnon’s lip. Together, the verses make that river edge the recurring starting boundary of the land’s measured reach.
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