What Does Leviticus 19:13 Mean in the King James?
Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning.
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
Keeping someone’s earned wage overnight is placed beside fraud and robbery: delay itself can be a way of taking.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to every moment another person’s earned pay sits under your control: the worker remains entitled to what their labor has earned. It places fraud, robbery, and holding wages overnight in one line, showing that delay can make possession unjust even without a forceful seizure.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A payment is not harmless to withhold just because you intend to give it later; the verse treats keeping another’s wage overnight as part of the same wrong as fraud and robbery.
THE ROOT
שָׂכִיר
sakhir
GROWS FROM
שכר
sakar
To hire or pay wages; hire, wages, or reward.
The word for the hired worker belongs to the same root family as words for hire and wages, keeping person and payment linguistically bound. The wage is not a discretionary favor detached from the one hired.
ALSO GROWS
sakhar: To hire or pay wages.
שָׂכַר
The act of hiring gives the worker’s claim to payment its root-level counterpart.
sakhar: Hire, wages, or reward.
שָׂכָר
This branch names the payment that belongs with the hired worker.
תָּלִין
talin
GROWS FROM
לון
lun
To lodge or pass the night.
“abide” in this verse is talin. The verb carries the image of lodging: the worker’s wage is barred from spending the night in another’s keeping. That makes the deadline an image of custody, not a vague instruction to pay eventually.
ALSO GROWS
linah: A lodging or overnight stay.
לִינָה
The noun keeps the overnight image audible inside the command about wages.
malon: A lodging place or inn.
מָלוֹן
This branch makes concrete the sense of something being kept overnight.
פְּעֻלָּה
pe'ullah
GROWS FROM
פעל
pa'al
To do, work, or perform.
“wages” in this verse is pe'ullah. The word for the wage grows from the root for doing or working, keeping the worker’s deed visible inside the payment. What is being held is not an abstract sum, but the return attached to someone’s work.
ALSO GROWS
pa'al: To do or work.
פָּעַל
The root names the activity from which the wage arises.
po'el: A worker; one who acts or works.
פֹּעֵל
This branch names the person whose work the wage answers.
THE PATTERN
A worker’s earned pay remains bound to the worker, so withholding it past its due time is treated as taking.
At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest he cry against thee unto the LORD, and it be sin unto thee.Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the labourer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house.THE THREAD
At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest he cry against thee unto the LORD, and it be sin unto thee.The Hebrew noun behind “him that is hired” is שָׂכִיר (sakhir), “hired worker”; Deuteronomy uses a form of the same root שכר (sakar), “hire, wages,” for “his hire.” This shared root binds the worker to the payment, while Deuteronomy makes the deadline unmistakable: that day’s wage is due before sunset.
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