What Does Leviticus 19:19 Mean in the King James?

Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.

Leviticus 19:19 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The repeated ⁨כִּלְאַיִם⁩ (kil’ayim, mixed kinds) carries one boundary across breeding, planting, and clothing.

THE MEANING

The verse places breeding, planting, and clothing within statutes to be guarded. Its repeated ⁨כִּלְאַיִם⁩ (kil’ayim, mixed kinds) marks a boundary that reaches from living bodies to land and fabric.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the belief that divine instruction concerns only inward conviction: here it reaches into breeding, planting, and clothing.

THE ROOT

תִּשְׁמֹרוּ

tishmeru

GROWS FROM

שמר

sh-m-r

To watch, guard, or preserve.

Here, “keep” is not only retaining statutes; it is guarding them. The same root can name a watchman and a charge entrusted to watch, making the verse’s boundaries something actively held.

ALSO GROWS

shomer: Watchman, guard

שֹׁמֵר

This branch makes the guarding sense of “keep” visible: the statutes are held under watch.

mishmeret: Charge, watch, duty

מִשְׁמֶרֶת

This branch connects keeping with a responsibility entrusted to someone, rather than mere possession.

תִּזְרַע

tizraʿ

GROWS FROM

זרע

z-r-ʿ

To sow; the same root also names seed and offspring.

“sow” in this verse is tizraʿ. The sowing verb belongs to the same root as seed and offspring, joining what enters the field with what it can bring forth. Beside animal breeding and clothing, planting becomes part of the verse’s wider concern with distinct kinds and their continuance.

ALSO GROWS

zeraʿ: Seed, offspring

זֶרַע

This branch links what is planted with the language of lineage and what comes forth.

zoreaʿ: Sower, one who sows

זֹרֵעַ

This branch keeps the act of sowing connected to the seed’s potential future.

THE PATTERN

Scripture uses each kind’s fruit as a visible sign of the boundaries that order life.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

Genesis 1:11 · KJVThe verse describes plants yielding seed and fruit according to their kind, making distinction part of the order of growth.

Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds: lest the fruit of thy seed which thou hast sown, and the fruit of thy vineyard, be defiled.

Deuteronomy 22:9 · KJVThe field’s boundary returns in a direct prohibition against sowing a vineyard with diverse seeds.

Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.

James 3:12 · KJVThe image of each source yielding its own kind of fruit carries the pattern from fields into speech.

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 2:15 · KJV

The word translated “keep” here shares the root ⁨שמר⁩ (sh-m-r, to guard or watch) with Leviticus 19:19. In both verses, keeping names a form of guardianship over a living order.

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