What Does Leviticus 7:27 Mean in the King James?
Whatsoever soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.
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 does not make an abstract “soul” the offender: the whole living being that eats blood is the one cut off.
THE MEANING
Here, “soul” names the living person, not a self detached from the body. The verse sets a severe boundary around eating blood: the person who does it is cut off from the people. It holds that consequence plainly.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that blood can be treated as ordinary food without consequence.
THE ROOT
נֶפֶשׁ
nephesh
GROWS FROM
נ־פ־שׁ
The living self: a person or living being, and by extension appetite or desire.
English “soul” can sound like an inner part detached from the body, but nephesh can name the whole living person. The verse says that this living being, the one who eats, is cut off.
ALSO GROWS
nephesh: A living person or creature.
This is the sense carried by “that soul” in the verse: the whole person faces the stated consequence.
nephesh: Appetite or desire for food.
The same word also reaches into appetite, connecting the living person with the act of eating that the verse names.
וְנִכְרְתָה
wenikhretah from karat
GROWS FROM
כ־ר־ת
To cut, cut off, or sever.
“cut off” in this verse is wenikhretah from karat. The consequence is expressed as a severing from the people. The same verb also appears in the phrase “cut a covenant,” so karat can name either the making of a bond or the cutting away of a person from communal life.
ALSO GROWS
karat: To cut away or sever.
This is the verb behind the verse’s stated consequence: the eater is severed from the people.
karat berit: To establish a covenant, literally expressed as cutting a covenant.
The shared verb makes the verse’s language of separation concrete: it describes a cut through a bond of belonging.
THE PATTERN
Scripture treats blood as life-bearing, so eating blood crosses a boundary around life.
But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.Only be sure that thou eat not the blood: for the blood is the life; and thou mayest not eat the life with the flesh.But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.THE THREAD
For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.This verse uses the same word, nephesh, for “life” and “soul,” joining the living being to the life carried in the blood. It makes visible why Leviticus 7:27 treats eating blood as a boundary with a severe consequence.
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