What Does Leviticus 15:1 Mean?
And the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying,
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 the LORD spake unto Moses and to Aaron, saying,THE KEY
Instruction arrives as an address, and the one it names, Moses, bears the name of someone drawn out.
THE MEANING
The word meets you as a spoken address before it becomes instruction. Moses, whose name is tied to being drawn out, stands beside Aaron as a hearer of what follows. The verse holds both a personal name and the shared receiving of the word in view.
THE ROOT
וַיְדַבֵּר
vayedabber
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak or declare; the related noun carries the sense of a word or matter.
“spoke” in this verse is vayedabber. English presents this as a report of speech, while the Hebrew verb shares its root with the word for a word or matter. The address is speech that places something before its hearers.
ALSO GROWS
dābār: word, matter
דָּבָר
The shared root links speaking with the matter being spoken.
dibbēr: he spoke
דִּבֵּר
This verbal form makes the act of speaking itself part of the same word family.
מֹשֶׁה
Mosheh
GROWS FROM
משׁה
To draw out, as in the biblical explanation of Moses’ name.
The name Moses is tied to being drawn out. When the LORD addresses him here, the name carries that image into the moment before the next instruction unfolds.
ALSO GROWS
māšāh: to draw out
מָשָׁה
This is the verb connected to the naming of Moses.
mĕšîtihû: I drew him out
מְשִׁיתִהוּ
This form appears in the explanation of Moses’ name and makes the name’s connection to drawing out explicit.
THE PATTERN
A living word begins by addressing a particular hearer before its instruction unfolds.
And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him from the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here I am.And the LORD came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak, for your servant hears and responds.And he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why do you pursue me?THE THREAD
And the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses, the one drawn out, and she said, Because from the waters I drew him out.Exodus connects Moses’ name with the words “I drew him out,” from the root meaning “draw out.” Here the LORD speaks to Moses by that name, carrying the image of being drawn out into the address that precedes the next instruction.
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