What Does Leviticus 7:23 Mean in the King James?
Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Ye shall eat no manner of fat, of ox, or of sheep, or of goat.
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 prohibition draws its boundary around the animal’s richest part, the same word that can name richness itself.
THE MEANING
This verse meets you with a boundary around what is richest: the fat of the ox, sheep, and goat is not eaten. The Hebrew word for fat also carries the sense of richness or a choice portion, so the line places abundance within a set-apart order.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The richest part is mine simply because I can take it.
THE ROOT
חֵלֶב
ḥēlev
GROWS FROM
חלב
ḥ-l-b
Fat; richness or the choicest portion.
The word names both animal fat and richness, so the restriction falls on the portion that signifies abundance. The same consonants appear in חָלָב (ḥālāv), “milk,” setting two rich animal products beside each other; their etymological relationship is uncertain, but the sound echo remains.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēlev: Fat; the rich or choice portion.
חֵלֶב
This is the verse’s word: the boundary is placed directly around the animal’s richest portion.
ḥālāv: Milk.
חָלָב
The shared consonants echo another rich animal product, placing fat beside nourishment while leaving their precise etymological link open.
THE PATTERN
Abundance is held within a relationship to its source, and its richest portion is not treated as ordinary possession.
And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat is the LORD’s.Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;THE THREAD
Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.The Hebrew word חֵלֶב (ḥēlev), “fat,” appears in both verses. Here it is restricted; in Deuteronomy it stands among images of abundance, revealing how the same richness can be provision and a portion set apart.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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