What Does Exodus 23:14 Mean in the King James?
Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year.
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 Hebrew calls these observances “three feet,” so the year’s feasts are not only dates but a path of return.
THE MEANING
Your year has three appointed returns, each oriented “unto me.” The feast makes time relational: the calendar holds recurring moments of gathering and celebration.
THE ROOT
רְגָלִים
regalim
GROWS FROM
רגל
ragal
Foot or leg.
“times” in this verse is regalim. The Hebrew phrase literally names “three feet,” the established expression for the three pilgrimage festivals. What KJV renders as occasions in time also carries a path the body takes: each feast is a return made by moving toward God.
ALSO GROWS
regel: Foot or leg.
רֶגֶל
The root begins with the body’s foot, making movement part of the image behind the appointed times.
regalim: Feet; by convention, the three pilgrimage festivals.
רְגָלִים
This is the verse’s phrase for the three yearly occasions, preserving travel and approach inside what KJV renders as “times.”
תָּחֹג
tachog
GROWS FROM
חגג
chagag
To celebrate or keep a festival.
The verb translated “keep a feast” shares its root with the festival noun and a word for a festal offering. The Hebrew gathers celebration, pilgrimage, and offering into a recurring act.
ALSO GROWS
chag: A feast or festival.
חַג
The noun names the celebration enacted by the verb, showing that the yearly observance is a recurring feast.
chagigah: A festal sacrifice or offering.
חֲגִיגָה
This related festival word shows celebration taking tangible form as something presented.
THE PATTERN
The year becomes a repeated path of gathering before God.
Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord GOD.Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles: and they shall not appear before the LORD empty:Now the Jews’ feast of tabernacles was at hand.THE THREAD
And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the LORD throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever.This verse uses the same feast word, linking the annual returns to a memorial kept through generations. The feast carries remembrance by giving it a recurring, embodied form.
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