What Does Leviticus 19:4 Mean in the King James?
Turn ye not unto idols, nor make to yourselves molten gods: 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 first forbidden movement is turning toward the idol; the making comes after.
THE MEANING
Your attention has a direction: it turns toward something, and your hands can give that object form and a claim. The verse names the LORD as your God beside this pull toward made things, exposing how turning and making belong to one movement.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that idolatry begins only when a crafted image exists: the verse names the turn toward it before the making.
THE ROOT
תִּפְנוּ
tifnū
GROWS FROM
פנה
פָּנָה (pānāh): turn, face toward or away.
The verb describes orientation, and it comes before the command to make. The sequence shows the turn as what precedes and steers the act of making.
ALSO GROWS
pōneh: turning; one who turns
פֹּנֶה
This participle keeps the root’s sense of an ongoing turn, making the verse’s first movement visible as a direction of attention.
pĕniyyāh: turning; approach or appeal
פְּנִיָּה
This noun names a turn toward something, echoing the verse’s focus on where attention is directed.
מַסֵּכָה
massēkhāh
GROWS FROM
נסך
נָסַךְ (nāsakh): pour out or pour into a vessel or mold.
The word for the molten image is connected to pouring: the image is a thing given form by what is poured. The root makes the act of fashioning visible inside the name of the object.
ALSO GROWS
nāsakh: to pour out or pour into a vessel
נָסַךְ
This verb names the action behind the molten image: material is poured into a form.
neseḵ: libation; poured offering
נֶסֶךְ
A libation is something poured out, showing the root’s concrete action in another word from the same family.
THE PATTERN
What receives a person’s trust and turning shapes what they make and forms them in return.
They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.THE THREAD
Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God.This verse uses the same Hebrew verb פנה (pānāh, turn), rendered “regard” here. The object changes, but both warnings locate the issue in where your attention turns.
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