What Does Leviticus 18:30 Mean in the King James?
Therefore shall ye keep mine ordinance, that ye commit not any one of these abominable customs, which were committed before you, and that ye defile not yourselves therein: I am the LORD your God.
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 says, in effect, “guard my charge”, the boundary itself must be kept before a surrounding pattern becomes your own.
THE MEANING
The verse names how repeated practices can shape and defile you. Its charge is to guard the boundary between what surrounds you and what becomes part of your life; the LORD is named as the ground of that boundary.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that familiar or inherited practices are harmless simply because they are familiar: participation can shape and defile you.
THE ROOT
וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם
u-shemartem
GROWS FROM
שׁמר
The verb form means “you shall keep” or “you shall guard”; the root means to watch over, guard, or keep.
The Hebrew pairs שָׁמַר (shamar, “keep” or “guard”) with מִשְׁמֶרֶת (mishmeret, “charge” or “guard duty”), both from the same root. The phrase makes the charge itself something to guard: vigilance protects the boundary between a surrounding practice and a practice that becomes your own.
ALSO GROWS
mishmeret: A charge, duty, or guard duty.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
This is the word translated “ordinance” in the verse, repeating the same root as “keep”: the charge is itself a keeping.
mishmar: A watch, guard, or custody.
מִשְׁמָר
This branch shows the root’s active sense of watchfulness, illuminating the attention carried by “keep.”
THE PATTERN
Guarding a boundary preserves what is entrusted from being shaped by what would defile it.
And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.THE THREAD
And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.Genesis uses שָׁמַר (shamar, “keep” or “guard”) for the human’s care of the garden, the same root repeated in “keep my charge” here. The connection opens keeping as protection of a living space, not merely compliance with a rule.
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