What Does Leviticus 17:7 Mean in the King James?
And they shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils, after whom they have gone a whoring. This shall be a statute for ever unto them throughout their generations.
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 שְּׂעִירִם (se’irim, “hairy ones” or “goats”) behind “devils” keeps an animal form inside the name of the forbidden recipients.
THE MEANING
The verse forbids sacrifice to the beings called “devils” and describes the people’s pursuit of them as whoring. It binds the offering to the relationship it expresses: the recipient of the sacrifice is also the one being pursued. This boundary is stated across generations.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that sacrifice is neutral by itself: the verse makes its recipient part of what the act means.
THE ROOT
לַשְּׂעִירִם
la-se'irim
GROWS FROM
שׂער
sa'ar
to be hairy or bristly
The word translated “devils” shares its root with words for hair and a hairy goat. English hides this animal-shaped name, making the verse’s forbidden recipients more concrete.
ALSO GROWS
se'ar: hair
שֵׂעָר
The shared root names the hairiness that gives the se’irim their name.
sa'ir: hairy one; he-goat
שָׂעִיר
This branch can name a goat, showing the animal image carried by the word rendered “devils.”
זֹנִים
zonim
GROWS FROM
זנה
zanah
to act as a prostitute; to be sexually unfaithful
“gone a whoring” in this verse is zonim. The verse uses a concrete sexual image for the people’s pursuit of these beings. The same root names both the act and the prostitute, holding betrayal and the one who enacts it together.
ALSO GROWS
zonah: prostitute
זֹנָה
This branch makes the sexual force of the verse’s image explicit.
zenunim: whoredoms; acts of sexual unfaithfulness
זְנוּנִים
The plural form shows how the root can name repeated acts of the unfaithfulness pictured here.
זִבְחֵיהֶם
zivcheihem
GROWS FROM
זבח
zabach
to slaughter for sacrifice
The word translated “sacrifices” comes from slaughter-language, and its root also names the altar. The verse makes the direction of that act explicit: the slaughter is dedicated to a particular recipient.
ALSO GROWS
zebach: sacrifice; slaughtered offering
זֶבַח
This is the noun for the offering at the center of the verse.
mizbeach: altar
מִזְבֵּחַ
The altar shares the sacrifice’s root, tying the place of offering to the act performed there.
THE PATTERN
An offering’s destination exposes the allegiance enacted through it.
Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice;They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.THE THREAD
Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice;The phrase “go a whoring” in Exodus uses the same Hebrew root as “gone a whoring” here. Exodus places that pursuit beside sacrifice to those gods, revealing the shared image of unfaithfulness as allegiance expressed through an offering.
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