What Does Leviticus 23:44 Mean in the King James?
And Moses declared unto the children of Israel the feasts of the LORD.
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 feasts are appointments with the LORD: times made shareable because they are spoken aloud.
THE MEANING
Sacred time is appointed, named, and spoken into the community. The verse presents a shared rhythm that the reader can hear and enter together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This unsettles the idea that sacred time is only private or self-made; here, it is appointed by the LORD and made known to a whole people.
THE ROOT
מֹעֲדֵי
moʿădê
GROWS FROM
יעד
To appoint, designate, or set for a meeting.
The word translated “feasts” carries the sense of appointed times, moments designated for meeting. The verse presents these observances as encounters built into a shared calendar, not merely occasions on which people gather.
ALSO GROWS
yaʿad: To appoint or designate.
יָעַד
This verb shows that the feasts are set times, not simply recurring events.
yiʿud: An appointment or designation.
יִעוּד
This noun echoes the feasts as times appointed for a shared encounter.
וַיְדַבֵּר
vayedabber
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak or utter.
“declared” in this verse is vayedabber. The Hebrew verb means “spoke,” and its root also gives a word for a word, matter, or thing. Moses’ speech makes the appointed rhythm public and tangible, placing it in the people’s common life.
ALSO GROWS
davar: A word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
The branch links spoken words with the matters they bring into shared attention.
dibbur: Speech or utterance.
דִּבּוּר
This branch keeps the verse’s emphasis on the feasts being spoken aloud to the community.
THE PATTERN
What is appointed becomes a shared rhythm when it is spoken into the community.
And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of the LORD, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts.And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.THE THREAD
And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:The Hebrew word for “seasons” here is מוֹעֲדִים (moʿadim, appointed times), from the same root behind Leviticus’ “feasts.” This places the feasts within creation’s larger rhythm of appointed time.
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