What Does Deuteronomy 14:21 Mean?
You shall not eat any fallen body that dies of itself. You shall give it to the sojourner who is within your gates, that he may eat it, or you may sell it to the foreigner, for you are a set-apart people to the LORD your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Ye shall not eat of any thing that dieth of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien: for thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.THE KEY
Set-apartness draws a boundary around what you consume while allowing what you refuse to become food for someone outside your people.
THE MEANING
Your identity as a people set apart reaches into what enters your body and how you handle what has died. The animal you may not eat can feed the resident outsider or be sold to a foreigner, while boiling a kid in its mother’s milk remains forbidden. The verse places bodily boundaries, provision for others, and restraint around nourishment in the same field of daily life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the assumption that being set apart belongs only to inward belief or sacred places; here it shapes ordinary food, exchange, and care for the outsider.
THE ROOT
קָדוֹשׁ
qādôsh
GROWS FROM
ק־ד־שׁ
q-d-sh
To set apart, consecrate.
“set-apart people” in this verse is qādôsh. The verse calls the people קָדוֹשׁ (qādôsh, set apart) and ties that identity to what they eat and how they handle food. The same root names both set-apartness in קֹדֶשׁ (qōdesh, sacredness) and a set-apart place in מִקְדָּשׁ (miqdāsh, sanctuary), carrying that distinction into appetite and exchange.
ALSO GROWS
qōdesh: Sacredness; set-apartness.
קֹדֶשׁ
It names the condition of belonging set apart, which this verse applies to everyday food boundaries.
miqdāsh: Sanctuary; set-apart place.
מִקְדָּשׁ
The shared root links set-apart identity with a place, while this verse shows that the distinction also reaches beyond such a place into daily life.
גֵּר
gēr
GROWS FROM
גור
g-w-r
To sojourn or reside among others as an outsider.
“sojourner” in this verse is gēr. The גֵּר (gēr, resident outsider) is someone who dwells among the people, not merely a distant foreigner. The root’s language of dwelling makes “in thy gates” part of the meaning: the food passes to someone whose life is within the community’s shared space.
ALSO GROWS
gūr: To sojourn or live among others as a resident outsider.
גּוּר
The verb shows that “stranger” carries a relation of dwelling among the people.
megūrîm: Sojournings; places or times of residence.
מְגוּרִים
This dwelling language makes the recipient someone living within the gates, where the community’s daily life unfolds.
THE PATTERN
Set-apart belonging reaches into daily choices and shapes a community’s relation to outsiders.
The first of the first-ripened of your ground you shall bring into the house of the LORD your God. You shall not boil a kid in his mother's milk.But the sojourner who sojourns with you shall be to you as one who springs up among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.but as the one who called you is set apart, you also become set apart in all your walk.THE THREAD
But the sojourner who sojourns with you shall be to you as one who springs up among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.The word גֵּר (gēr, resident outsider) is the same word used for the person who may receive the animal here. This verse opens that provision further: the resident outsider within the gates is also named as someone to be regarded as one born among the people.
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