What Does Leviticus 10:13 Mean?
And you shall eat it in the set-apart place, for it is your portion, and your sons' portion, of the offerings of the LORD made by fire, for so I am commanded.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And ye shall eat it in the holy place, because it is thy due, and thy sons’ due, of the sacrifices of the LORD made by fire: for so I am commanded.THE KEY
Holiness includes the portion received, not only what is offered by fire.
THE MEANING
This verse holds sacred service and receiving together: the appointed share is eaten in a place set apart. The portion is not outside the holy order; receiving it belongs within that order.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that receiving nourishment makes an offering less sacred; here, the appointed eating is part of the sacred arrangement.
THE ROOT
חָקְךָ
ḥoqkha
GROWS FROM
חקק
ḥ-q-q
To inscribe or mark out; by extension, to prescribe or decree.
The word rendered “due” carries the sense of a prescribed share, something marked out. The verse places receiving inside the offering’s prescribed order: this portion has a place in what is set apart.
ALSO GROWS
ḥaqaq: To engrave, inscribe, or decree.
חָקַק
The share is not incidental; it is marked out within the arrangement.
ḥuqqah: A prescribed statute or ordinance.
חֻקָּה
This branch shows how the root can name an established order, the same kind of order that includes the priests’ portion.
קָדוֹשׁ
qadosh
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh
To set apart, make distinct for a specific purpose.
“set-apart place” in this verse is qadosh. The place is set apart as the location where this portion is eaten. Here, set-apartness gives receiving a boundary and a place; eating does not take the portion outside the sacred order.
ALSO GROWS
qodesh: That which is set apart; a sacred thing or place.
קֹדֶשׁ
The word can name both the quality of set-apartness and what belongs within it.
miqdash: A sanctuary, a place set apart.
מִקְדָּשׁ
This branch makes the spatial sense clear: set-apartness can be embodied in a place where a sacred act occurs.
THE PATTERN
What is set apart for service can also be its appointed provision.
And what remains of it Aaron and his sons shall eat. With unleavened bread it shall be eaten in the set-apart place. In the court of the tent of meeting they shall eat it.The LORD is the portion of my share and of my cup; you hold fast my lot.Do you not know that those who serve the set-apart things eat from the temple, and those who sit beside the altar share with the altar?THE THREAD
And what remains of it Aaron and his sons shall eat. With unleavened bread it shall be eaten in the set-apart place. In the court of the tent of meeting they shall eat it.The same q-d-sh root appears in “holy place,” pairing set-apartness with the act of eating. The verse makes clear that receiving the offering’s remainder belongs within its sacred order.
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