What Does Leviticus 17:14 Mean?
For the living soul of all flesh is its blood, and its blood is in its living soul. So I said to the children of Israel, You shall not eat the blood of any flesh, for its living soul is its blood. Whoever eats it shall be cut off.
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
For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof: therefore I said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall eat the blood of no manner of flesh: for the life of all flesh is the blood thereof: whosoever eateth it shall be cut off.THE KEY
The verse names blood as the nephesh, the living soul, of all flesh, holding each creature’s life within its blood.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks of life as embodied: the blood of all flesh is its nephesh, its living soul. The boundary around consuming blood holds the creature’s life within its flesh. The one who eats it is said to be cut off.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that life is an abstract possession, separate from the creature’s body, gives way here: the verse names the blood itself as the nephesh of all flesh.
THE ROOT
נֶפֶשׁ
nephesh
GROWS FROM
נפש
n-p-sh
The living being, self, or life.
“living soul” in this verse is nephesh. The word is nephesh, rendered “life” here and “soul” in other passages; it names the living being itself. A related verb, naphash, means to refresh oneself, joining the living self with its renewal while this verse locates that life in blood.
ALSO GROWS
nephesh chayyah: Living soul; living being.
נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה
Genesis 2:7 calls the formed human a nephesh chayyah, showing nephesh as a living being in its embodied fullness.
naphash: To refresh oneself or rest.
נָפַשׁ
Exodus 23:12 uses this related verb for being refreshed; the shared root links the living self with renewal.
יִכָּרֵת
yikkaret
GROWS FROM
כרת
k-r-t
To cut or sever.
The final clause uses the cutting root for the consequence: the eater is severed. The same verb can describe cutting a covenant, so here the root gives “cut off” the force of a real severance.
ALSO GROWS
yikkaret: Be cut off; be severed.
יִכָּרֵת
This is the form used in the verse, making the consequence a severance.
karat berit: To cut a covenant.
כָּרַת בְּרִית
Genesis 15:18 uses the same verb with covenant; the shared root connects covenant-making through a cut with the severance named here.
THE PATTERN
Blood is treated as the life belonging to flesh, so it is set apart from ordinary consumption.
But flesh in its living soul, its blood, you shall not eat.Only hold fast, that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the living soul, and you may not eat the living soul with the flesh.But that we write to them to hold off from the stains of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.THE THREAD
And the LORD God shaped the ground-being, Adam, from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul.Genesis calls the human a nephesh, the same word rendered “life” in Leviticus. The root joins what English often separates as “soul” and “life”: a living being in its embodied fullness.
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