What Does Leviticus 23:21 Mean in the King James?
And ye shall proclaim on the selfsame day, that it may be an holy convocation unto you: ye shall do no servile work therein: it shall be a statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.
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 Hebrew word for “proclaim” shares its root with “convocation”: the announcement is already a summons into gathering.
THE MEANING
The day reaches you as a publicly named gathering, and ordinary labor stops within it. Its set-apartness takes communal form: people assemble, work pauses, and the rhythm is carried through dwellings and generations. Sacred time is something practiced together, not only privately held.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that sacred time is only an inward feeling: this day is proclaimed, shared in assembly, and protected from ordinary work.
THE ROOT
וּקְרָאתֶם
u-qĕrāʾtem
GROWS FROM
קרא
q-r-ʾ
To call, summon, proclaim, read aloud, or name.
The verse uses this root in both “proclaim” and “convocation” (מִקְרָא, miqra). English separates the announcement from the assembly, while Hebrew links them: the proclamation summons the gathering.
ALSO GROWS
miqra: Convocation; something called together, also a public reading.
מִקְרָא
This is the word translated “convocation” in the verse; it shares its root with “proclaim.”
qore: One who calls or reads aloud; a reader.
קֹרֵא
It shows how the same root can describe both summoning people and voicing words before them.
THE PATTERN
A set-apart day takes visible form when a community gathers and ordinary labor pauses or changes.
And in the first day there shall be an holy convocation, and in the seventh day there shall be an holy convocation to you; no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done of you.If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.THE THREAD
When all Israel is come to appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing.The word translated “read” comes from קרא (q-r-ʾ), the same root behind “proclaim” and “convocation.” Here, the word’s range opens up: reading aloud becomes a summons heard by a gathered people.
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