What Does Genesis 27:40 Mean in the King James?
And by thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother; and it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck.
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 sentence that places a yoke on Esau also names its limit: he breaks it from his neck.
THE MEANING
The verse holds a hard condition in view: life runs by the sword and under a brother’s service. The bond presses like a yoke on the neck, yet the sentence also holds a breaking point, when the burden is stripped away. The Hebrew phrase KJV renders “have the dominion” also carries the sense “grow restless,” making restlessness one possible turn toward release.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a condition imposed by power must last forever meets its limit here: the yoke can be broken from the body that bears it.
THE ROOT
וּפָרַקְתָּ
u-faraqta
GROWS FROM
פרק
p-r-q
to break apart, strip off, or remove
“break” in this verse is u-faraqta. The action is more than a change in rank: the burden is taken apart and removed from the body. Related words for dismantling and unloading keep the release concrete, the yoke comes off as a load.
ALSO GROWS
piruq: dismantling, disassembly
פֵּרוּק
The yoke’s breaking is an undoing of what holds the neck under pressure.
periqah: unloading, discharge
פְּרִיקָה
The root also names taking a load off, echoing the yoke removed from the neck.
תַּעֲבֹד
taʿavod
GROWS FROM
עבד
ʿ-b-d
to work, serve, or labor
“serve” in this verse is taʿavod. The same root names the servant and the work or service itself, so subjection here is a lived relation enacted through labor. Set beside the root for breaking off, the verse holds imposed service and its rupture in one sentence.
ALSO GROWS
ʿeved: servant
עֶבֶד
This noun from the same root makes the serving relationship concrete.
ʿavodah: work, service
עֲבוֹדָה
The root links the act of serving to the labor through which that service is lived.
THE PATTERN
A yoke makes another’s authority into bodily pressure, and release is pictured as its bands breaking so the burdened one can stand upright.
I am the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.THE THREAD
I am the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.Both verses use עֹל (ʿol, yoke) for the burden borne on the body and picture release as breaking it away. Leviticus adds the changed posture: the one freed from the yoke is made to go upright.
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