What Does Deuteronomy 22:11 Mean?
You shall not wear a garment of mixed threads, wool and flax together.
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
Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together.THE KEY
The Hebrew names a specific textile blend, sha’atnez (שַׁעַטְנֵז), so the boundary is about wool and linen together, not every kind of mixture.
THE MEANING
The verse marks a precise boundary around what is worn: wool and linen are not joined in one garment. It names the materials and leaves the reason for the boundary unstated.
THE ROOT
תִּלְבַּשׁ
tilbash
GROWS FROM
ל־ב־שׁ
l-b-sh
put on, wear, clothe
“wear” in this verse is tilbash. The Hebrew root links the act of wearing with words for clothing itself. Here the boundary applies at the moment a material becomes a covering on the body: this particular combination is not worn.
ALSO GROWS
levush: garment, clothing
לְבוּשׁ
This noun grows from the same root as “wear,” linking the act to what is put on.
hilbish: to clothe someone
הִלְבִּישׁ
This form makes the act of clothing another person explicit, keeping the same root at the center of the covering.
THE PATTERN
Scripture treats distinctions and combinations as consequential: what is separated, joined, or patched can shape the integrity of the whole.
And God saw the light, that it was good, and God parted the light from the darkness.You shall guard my statutes. You shall not let your livestock multiply with another kind; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed; nor shall a garment of two kinds, linen and wool, come upon you.No one lays a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for its filling lifts away from the garment, and the tear grows worse.THE THREAD
And the LORD God made tunics of skin for Adam and for his wife, and clothed them.The verb translated “clothed” is וַיַּלְבִּשֵׁם (wayyalbishem, clothed them), from לָבַשׁ (lavash, to put on or clothe), the same root as “wear” here. Genesis presents clothing as a covering placed on the human; Deuteronomy names a limit on what that covering may be made from.
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