What Does Leviticus 23:3 Mean in the King James?
Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings.
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
Sabbath makes stopping itself the shape of a holy gathering.
THE MEANING
Your time includes six days for work and a seventh named as cessation, a holy gathering belonging to the LORD in every dwelling. When labor stops, time opens for shared life set apart to God.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that stopping work means wasted time: here, cessation itself is named holy.
THE ROOT
שַׁבָּת שַׁבָּתוֹן
shabbat shabbaton
GROWS FROM
שׁבת
sh-b-t
to cease, stop, or desist
The Hebrew pairs shabbat with shabbaton, repeating the root of cessation in the phrase translated sabbath of rest. The day is defined by work coming to a stop, and that stopping makes room for the holy gathering named alongside it.
ALSO GROWS
shabbat: Sabbath; a cessation set apart as a day
שַׁבָּת
It names the seventh day through the act of ceasing.
shabbaton: solemn or complete rest
שַׁבָּתוֹן
It intensifies the cessation, making the day a full stopping from ordinary work.
מִקְרָא
miqra
GROWS FROM
קרא
q-r-ʾ
to call, summon, or proclaim
The word translated convocation is miqra, from qara, to call or summon. The Hebrew keeps the call inside the gathering: Sabbath is shared time into which people are summoned as a holy assembly.
ALSO GROWS
qara: to call or proclaim
קָרָא
This verb reveals the calling action held inside the word for convocation.
miqra: a called assembly or convocation
מִקְרָא
It shows that the Sabbath’s holiness is expressed in people gathered together.
THE PATTERN
The seventh day is set apart through cessation from ordinary labor, making stopping a sacred rhythm.
And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:THE THREAD
And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.Leviticus names the day שַׁבָּת (shabbat, cessation), while Genesis uses the same root in וַיִּשְׁבֹּת (vayishbot, he ceased or rested). The shared root connects the seventh day with the act of stopping, which Leviticus names as a holy gathering.
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