What Does Leviticus 18:4 Mean in the King James?
Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances, to walk 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
What is guarded is not stored beside life; it becomes the path the reader walks.
THE MEANING
The judgments and ordinances are not detached ideas; they make a path to walk in now. The verse binds that way to the present claim, “I am the LORD your God.”
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that keeping God’s instruction means merely preserving it as a correct idea while life follows a separate path.
THE ROOT
תִּשְׁמֹרוּ
tishmeru
GROWS FROM
שׁמר
sh-m-r
To guard, watch over, or keep under attentive care.
The word translated “keep” carries the sense of guarding and watching over. Paired with “walk therein,” it shows that the instruction is kept through an attentive way of moving through life.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: A watcher or guardian.
שׁוֹמֵר
This branch makes the attentiveness in “keep” visible: the ordinances are held in view, not merely stored in memory.
mishmeret: A charge, watch, or guard duty.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
A charge is something entrusted to someone’s care, echoing the verse’s picture of instruction as something actively kept.
לָלֶכֶת
lalechet
GROWS FROM
הלך
h-l-k
To go, walk, or proceed.
The verse describes instruction as a route for movement: the reader walks “in” the judgments and ordinances. What is guarded becomes the terrain of the walk.
ALSO GROWS
holekh: One who goes or walks.
הוֹלֵךְ
This form keeps the root’s sense of ongoing movement in view, matching the verse’s image of a way inhabited step by step.
halikhah: A walk or going.
הֲלִיכָה
This branch shows how the root can name the movement itself, illuminating the verse’s joining of instruction with lived conduct.
מִשְׁפָּטַי
mishpatai
GROWS FROM
שׁפט
sh-p-t
To judge, decide, or render judgment.
“judgments” in this verse is mishpatai. Mishpat carries judgment and decision into the path described here. The way is not only walked; it is shaped by discernment about what is right.
ALSO GROWS
shofet: A judge, one who decides a matter.
שׁוֹפֵט
This branch reveals the active discernment contained in “judgments,” rather than reducing them to abstract rules.
mishpat: Judgment, decision, or justice.
מִשְׁפָּט
The singular form keeps the root’s sense of a decision that orders a matter, giving depth to the judgments that form this path.
THE PATTERN
Instruction becomes a guarded path when it is kept through the way one walks.
Ye shall walk in all the ways which the LORD your God hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may be well with you, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye shall possess.Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently.If ye love me, keep my commandments.THE THREAD
I am the LORD your God; walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them;This verse repeats Leviticus’s structure, rearranging the order of walking, keeping, and doing. The three actions form one movement, anchored in the same present claim: “I am the LORD your God.”
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