What Does Deuteronomy 26:13 Mean in the King James?
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 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 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.
“hallowed” 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.
And the Levite, (because he hath no part nor inheritance with thee,) and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, which are within thy gates, shall come, and shall eat and be satisfied; that the LORD thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine hand which thou doest.The LORD preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.THE THREAD
When thou hast made an end of tithing all the tithes of thine increase the third year, which is the year of tithing, and hast given it unto the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, that they may eat within thy 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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