What Does Leviticus 20:27 Mean in the King James?
A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them.
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 word translated “wizard” is linked to “knowing,” so the verse frames a claim to hidden knowledge and then gives it the text’s most severe consequence.
THE MEANING
You encounter a command for communal execution in direct terms: a man or woman associated with an ʾob or yiddeʿoni is to be stoned to death. The sentence says the condemned person’s blood is upon them, assigning responsibility within the text rather than leaving the killing implicit. Its force now includes the violence it commands.
THE ROOT
יִדְּעֹנִי
yiddeʿōnī
GROWS FROM
ידע
Know, recognize, perceive.
Yiddeʿoni is commonly connected with yadaʿ, “to know,” giving “wizard” the sense of a knowing or divining practitioner. The root makes the category more specific: the verse concerns a person claiming access to knowledge through this practice, and the sentence then commands stoning without softening the violence.
ALSO GROWS
yadaʿ: Know or perceive by encounter.
יָדַע
This verb supplies the root that links the condemned figure to knowing.
daʿat: Knowledge.
דַּעַת
This noun from the same root shows the knowledge-language carried by yiddeʿoni.
THE PATTERN
Scripture does not treat a spirit’s claim to hidden knowledge as self-authenticating; it names, bounds, and tests that source.
Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying:Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.THE THREAD
Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.The verse repeats yiddeʿoni, the term translated “wizard,” and places it beside consulting familiar spirits and necromancy. That parallel opens the term’s scope while leaving Leviticus’s lethal sentence fully visible.
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