What Does Leviticus 18:25 Mean?
And the land is soiled. Therefore I visit its crookedness upon it, and the land itself vomits out those who settle in her.
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 land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.THE KEY
The land does not merely bear defilement; it becomes the one that expels its inhabitants.
THE MEANING
The land is a participant in human life, not inert scenery: it registers what is done upon it. When it is defiled, dwelling is no longer secure, and the land itself drives its inhabitants out. The verse places human conduct, the condition of the ground, and the loss of home in one living chain.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a place can be violated without changing the terms of dwelling there.
THE ROOT
וַתָּקִא
vattāqî
GROWS FROM
קיא
קיא (q-y-ʾ): to vomit; by extension, to expel from the mouth.
“vomits out” in this verse is vattāqî. English gives the land a startling action, but the Hebrew verb comes from קיא, to vomit: the land expels its inhabitants as a body ejects what it cannot hold. The same root names vomit itself and the act of bringing something up, making expulsion the verse’s governing image.
ALSO GROWS
qîʾ: Vomit.
קִיא
The noun names what the land’s verb evokes: expulsion from within.
hēqîʾ: To cause to vomit; to expel.
הֵקִיא
This causative form makes the ejection explicit, illuminating the land as the agent that sends its inhabitants out.
וַתִּטְמָא
vatitma
GROWS FROM
טמא
טמא (ṭ-m-ʾ): to become or make unclean, impure, or profaned.
“soiled” in this verse is vatitma. The same consonants run through the verb for becoming defiled, the adjective for unclean, and the noun for impurity. Here that state is paired with an active response from the land: the place made impure expels its inhabitants.
ALSO GROWS
ṭāmēʾ: Unclean or impure.
טָמֵא
The adjective names the condition the verse says the land enters.
ṭumʾāh: Impurity or uncleanness.
טֻמְאָה
This noun makes clear that defilement is a condition of the land, not merely a stain on an individual.
THE PATTERN
A dwelling place responds to what it holds, and its response can become expulsion.
And keep all my statutes and all my judgments, and do them, so that the land to which I bring you to settle does not vomit you out.So you shall not defile the land where you are, for blood defiles the land; and the land cannot be covered over for the blood poured out in it, except by the blood of the one who poured it out.So then, because you are tepid, neither cold nor boiling, I am about to vomit you out of my mouth.THE THREAD
And keep all my statutes and all my judgments, and do them, so that the land to which I bring you to settle does not vomit you out.The same Hebrew root קיא (q-y-ʾ, to vomit or expel) names the land’s action in both verses. The repeated image binds the conditions of dwelling to the land’s capacity to send its inhabitants out.
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