What Does Leviticus 17:1 Mean?
And the LORD spoke to Moses, 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, saying,THE KEY
The verse’s first movement is not a command but an address: the word begins by reaching someone.
THE MEANING
The verse places you at the threshold of speech: the LORD addresses Moses, and the saying that follows begins to take form. Moses’ name carries the echo of being drawn out, so the receiver’s name holds an image of emergence as the word arrives.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the idea that a divine word is merely information: here, speech is addressed to a person and opens an encounter.
THE ROOT
וַיְדַבֵּר
waydabbēr
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak; the same consonants also form a noun for a word or matter.
“spoke” in this verse is waydabbēr. The speaking verb וַיְדַבֵּר (waydabbēr) shares its root with דָּבָר (davar), meaning “word” or “matter.” The Hebrew holds speech and what is spoken together, giving the LORD’s address substance as it opens the passage.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word; matter or thing.
דָּבָר
The shared root links the act of speaking with the word or matter being conveyed.
medabber: One speaking; a speaker.
מְדַבֵּר
This speaking form makes the root’s movement audible: the word comes through a voice.
מֹשֶׁה
Mosheh
GROWS FROM
משׁה
To draw out.
Moses’ name echoes the act of being drawn out, as the naming in Exodus connects him with being drawn from the water. The one addressed here carries emergence in his name: the word reaches a listener whose name remembers being brought out.
ALSO GROWS
māshāh: To draw out.
מָשָׁה
This verb is the root named in Moses’ story and gives his name its image of emergence.
va’emshēhu: And I drew him out.
וָאֶמְשֵׁהוּ
This form in Exodus 2:10 makes the name’s root visible as an act of drawing out.
THE PATTERN
Divine speech becomes encounter when it calls a hearer into response.
And the LORD came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak, for your servant hears and responds.My sheep hear and respond to my voice, and I perceive them, and they follow me.THE THREAD
And when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with him, he heard the voice speaking to him from above the covering that was upon the ark of the witness, from between the two cherubim, and he spoke to him.The same Hebrew root דבר (d-b-r), “speak,” appears as Leviticus opens with the LORD speaking to Moses and as Moses hears a voice and speaks back. The repeated root reveals an exchange: the word is received in a place of encounter.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us