What Does Leviticus 18:26 Mean?
So guard my statutes and my judgments. Do not do any of these stomach-turning things, neither any of your own who springs up in the land, nor the sojourner who sojourns among you.
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
Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you:THE KEY
The same boundary applies to the native-born and the resident outsider; neither origin creates an exception.
THE MEANING
The limits on these acts bind everyone living among you, whether native-born or resident from elsewhere. The boundary belongs to shared life together, not to a person’s origin.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that insiders receive a private exception, or that outsiders fall beyond the community’s shared obligations.
THE ROOT
הַגֵּר הַגָּר
ha-ger ha-gar
GROWS FROM
גור
To reside as a sojourner or resident alien.
“sojourner who sojourns” in this verse is ha-ger ha-gar. The phrase הַגֵּר הַגָּר (ha-ger ha-gar, “the resident alien who resides”) pairs the word for a resident alien with a form of the same root meaning “residing.” The verse places this resident alongside the native-born under the same prohibitions, making shared presence the basis of the boundary.
ALSO GROWS
ger: A person residing among a community from elsewhere.
גֵּר
This is the person the verse explicitly includes within the shared boundary.
gar: Dwelling or residing; the participle used in הַגָּר (ha-gar, “the one residing”).
גָּר
Paired with ger, it repeats the root in the phrase “the resident alien who resides among you.”
וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם
ushmartem
GROWS FROM
שמר
To guard, watch over, or keep.
The verb translated “keep” also carries the sense of guarding and watching. Here the instruction is to guard a boundary by refraining from the listed acts, and that boundary holds for everyone living among you.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: One who guards or watches.
שֹׁמֵר
This branch makes the watchful force inside “keep” visible.
mishmeret: A guarded trust, duty, or charge.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
It shows “keeping” as holding a shared responsibility in care.
THE PATTERN
A shared community boundary applies across differences of origin and status.
One instruction will be for the native of the land, and for the sojourner who sojourns among you.One instruction and one judgment shall be for you, and for the sojourner who sojourns with you.My brothers, do not hold the trust of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, the Lord of weight, by receiving faces.THE THREAD
But the sojourner who sojourns with you shall be to you as one who springs up among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God.Leviticus 19:34 repeats הַגֵּר הַגָּר (ha-ger ha-gar, “the resident alien who resides”), the same root pairing used for the resident stranger here. This verse places that person under the same prohibitions; the connected verse names them as one born among you and extends the shared frame to love.
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