What Does Deuteronomy 7:22 Mean in the King James?

And the LORD thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little: thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee.

Deuteronomy 7:22 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The pace of removal is part of protection: clearing the nations all at once would let another danger multiply into the opening.

THE MEANING

The LORD your God drives the nations before you little by little; their immediate, complete removal would expose you to beasts of the field multiplying against you. The verse keeps the displacement and the danger it leaves behind in view together.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

This undoes the assumption that completing the removal at once is necessarily safer: an emptied land would let another danger multiply.

THE ROOT

תִּרְבֶּה

tirbeh

GROWS FROM

רבה

ravah

To become many, grow numerous, or increase.

“increase” in this verse is tirbeh. The word names the beasts becoming many. The same root describes living creatures multiplying in Genesis, so the danger here lies in what expands into the space left by the removal.

ALSO GROWS

ravah: To become many; to increase.

רָבָה

This form describes the number growing, the same action named in the warning about the beasts.

hirbah: To make many; to multiply.

הִרְבָּה

This causative form makes the increase explicit, as in the multiplying of creatures in Genesis 1:22.

כַּלֹּתָם

kallotam

GROWS FROM

כלה

kalah

To be complete or finished; to bring something to completion.

The Hebrew word behind “consume” grows from the idea of completing or finishing. The verse says that finishing the removal all at once would leave the land exposed to another danger.

ALSO GROWS

kalah: To be complete or finished; to come to an end.

כָּלָה

This form carries the sense of reaching completion that underlies the verse’s warning against doing it all at once.

killah: To complete, finish, or bring to an end.

כִּלָּה

This form describes actively bringing something to its end, illuminating the force of “consume them” in the verse.

THE PATTERN

Measured stages preserve the conditions needed for what comes next.

I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.

Exodus 23:29-30 · KJVThe nations are driven out gradually because removing them all at once would let the beasts multiply against you.

For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.

Mark 4:28 · KJVThe harvest arrives in stages, each preceding the next rather than appearing complete at once.

Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain.

James 5:7 · KJVThe farmer waits through the conditions and seasons required for the earth’s fruit to mature.

THE THREAD

And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

Genesis 1:22 · KJV

The verb translated “multiply” carries the same root as the beasts’ “increase” in Deuteronomy. Here it names creaturely multiplication as a blessing; there, it names a danger as wild beasts multiply into the land being cleared.

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