What Does Leviticus 18:21 Mean?
Do not give any of your seed to pass through the fire to Molech, and do not pierce the nature of your God. I am the LORD.
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 thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD.THE KEY
By calling a child’s burning a profaning of God’s name, the verse binds violence against the living to the nature carried by that name.
THE MEANING
You shall not give any of your offspring to be passed through fire to Molech; the verse names this as profaning the name of your God. The word שֵׁם (shem, name/nature) ties God’s identity to what happens to the child: this violence is not separate from the name invoked. “I am the LORD” places the speaker’s own nature at the end of the prohibition.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a religious purpose can sanctify a child’s destruction: this verse calls handing a child to Molech a profaning of God’s name.
THE ROOT
תִּתֵּן
tittēn
GROWS FROM
נ־ת־ן
n-t-n
Give, set, or place.
The Hebrew verb תִּתֵּן (tittēn, give) sits at the center of the KJV’s “let ... pass”: someone gives the offspring to be passed through the fire. The same root forms words for a gift, making this transfer of a child a bitter inversion of giving.
ALSO GROWS
nātûn: Something handed over or set in place.
נָתוּן
It keeps the act of handing the offspring over in view.
mattānāh: A gift or present.
מַתָּנָה
It sharpens the contrast between giving as a gift and giving a child into destruction.
לְהַעֲבִיר
lehaʿăvîr
GROWS FROM
ע־ב־ר
ʿ-b-r
Cross over or pass across; in this form, cause to pass.
“pass through” in this verse is lehaʿăvîr. The verb is causative: the addressee is to make the offspring cross through fire. Its branches keep the crossing literal and stark, while the verse makes clear who causes it.
ALSO GROWS
ʿēver: The far side or region across from a point.
עֵבֶר
It carries the root’s sense of crossing from one side to another.
maʿavār: A crossing or passage.
מַעֲבָר
It echoes the passage through fire named in the verse.
תְּחַלֵּל
teḥallēl
GROWS FROM
ח־ל־ל
ḥ-l-l
Profane or make common what is set apart.
“pierce” in this verse is teḥallēl. The profanation is joined directly to שֵׁם (shem, name/nature): what is done to the child bears on the nature carried by God’s name. The verse treats this violence as a violation of that name, not as a ritual insulated from it.
ALSO GROWS
ḥillēl: To violate or treat as common what is set apart.
חִלֵּל
It is the verb used here for what the act does to God’s name.
ḥol: What is common rather than set apart.
חֹל
It shows the root’s connection between profaning and making something common.
THE PATTERN
The honor of God’s name is bound to what a community does with vulnerable human life.
And I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given of his seed to Molech, to soil my set-apart place, and to pierce my set-apart name.You shall not do so to the LORD your God, for every recoiling thing to the LORD, which he hates, they have done to their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burned in the fire to their gods.With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who have been made according to the likeness of God.THE THREAD
And I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given of his seed to Molech, to soil my set-apart place, and to pierce my set-apart name.It repeats the roots זרע (zeraʿ, seed/offspring) and נתן (natan, give): offspring are given to Molech. Then it names the result as defiling God’s sanctuary and profaning God’s holy name, drawing the two clauses of this verse into one explicit consequence.
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