What Does Deuteronomy 26:13 Mean?
And you say before the LORD your God, I have cleared away the set-apart things from my house, and I have also given them to the Levite, to the sojourner, to the fatherless, and to the widow, according to all your commands, which you commanded me. I have not crossed over your commands, and I have not forgotten them.
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
Then thou shalt say before the LORD thy God, I have brought away the hallowed things out of mine house, and also have given them unto the Levite, and unto the stranger, to the fatherless, and to the widow, according to all thy commandments which thou hast commanded me: I have not transgressed thy commandments, neither have I forgotten them:THE KEY
The verse locates set-apartness in a path: what leaves the household is placed among those with less security.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks integrity as a material trail: what is set apart has left the speaker’s house and reached the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow. The declaration joins that distribution to remembered obedience, making care part of the command’s lived form.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It unsettles the belief that sacredness is preserved by private possession: the speaker’s declaration includes naming who received what left the house.
THE ROOT
הַקֹּדֶשׁ
ha-qodesh
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh
To be set apart or consecrated.
“set-apart things” in this verse is ha-qodesh. The verse names the portion as haqqodesh, the set-apart thing, then traces its path out of the household. Its set-apartness is tied here to a concrete destination among the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow.
ALSO GROWS
qadash: To set apart or consecrate.
קָדַשׁ
The verb shows that set-apartness is something enacted; here, the portion is set apart for a destination beyond the household.
qadosh: Set apart.
קָדוֹשׁ
This adjective carries the same seed as the hallowed portion named in the declaration.
miqdash: Sanctuary, a set-apart place.
מִקְדָּשׁ
The sanctuary is a place marked by this root; this verse shows the same set-apart language attached to goods that move outward.
נְתַתִּיו
netattiv
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
To give, set, or place.
The root of “given” also carries the sense of setting or placing. The verse names where the provision has been placed: with the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: Gift.
מַתָּנָה
The gift is provision transferred from one hand to another, like the portion named here.
natun: Given, assigned.
נָתוּן
This form makes the root’s sense of placement clear: what is given is set into another’s care.
THE PATTERN
Set-apart provision moves toward people whose place in the community leaves their livelihood less secure.
The Levite, for he has no portion nor inheritance with you, and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your gates, shall come and eat and be filled, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands which you do.The LORD guards the sojourners. He upholds the fatherless and the widow. But the way of the wicked he makes crooked.Clean and unstained service before God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widowed in their being pressed, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.THE THREAD
When you have finished setting aside the tenth of all that your land brings in, in the third year, the year of the tenth, and have given it to the Levite, to the sojourner, to the fatherless, and to the widow, so that they may eat within your gates and be filled.The same root, נתן (n-t-n), “give, set, place,” appears in both verses. Verse 12 names the giving and its recipients; verse 13 turns that completed movement into a spoken account before God.
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