What Does Leviticus 18:29 Mean?
For everyone who does any of these stomach-turning things, the living souls who do them shall be cut off from among their people.
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 whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people.THE KEY
The verse says the consequence reaches the living person by severing that person from their people, making belonging part of what is at stake.
THE MEANING
This verse places a hard boundary around the acts it calls abominations: the people who do them are cut off from their community. It names living persons, not a detachable part of a person, and ties their conduct to their place among others. The consequence is severe, and this sentence does not explain how the severance is carried out.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that these acts remain only individual: the verse makes a person’s relation to their people part of the consequence.
THE ROOT
וְנִכְרְתוּ
venikhretu
GROWS FROM
כרת
To cut, cut away, or sever.
“cut off” in this verse is venikhretu. The root gives the consequence the force of severance: the living persons are cut away from their people. The same root also appears in the phrase for making a covenant, so its range can mark both a bond and a cutting away from communal belonging.
ALSO GROWS
karet: Being cut off; excision.
כָּרֵת
This noun makes the severing sense explicit and echoes the verse’s consequence.
karat berit: To cut a covenant.
כָּרַת בְּרִית
The same root can describe entering a binding relationship, revealing how closely this verse’s severance is tied to belonging.
הַנְּפָשׁוֹת
han-nefashot
GROWS FROM
נפש
Living soul, self, or living being.
“living souls” in this verse is han-nefashot. Nefesh names the living person, not merely an immaterial inner part. Here the verse speaks of whole persons being cut off from their people.
ALSO GROWS
nefesh ḥayyah: Living creature; living soul.
נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה
This phrase shows nefesh naming a whole living being, which clarifies the scope of the verse’s severance.
nafshi: My self; my living soul.
נַפְשִׁי
This possessive form keeps the word close to the person themselves, rather than an isolated part of them.
הַתּוֹעֵבֹת
ha-to'evot
GROWS FROM
תעב
To abhor or regard as loathsome.
“stomach-turning things” in this verse is ha-to'evot. The word carries the force of abhorrence, not simply an abstract category of rule-breaking. Its root connects the named acts to a strong judgment of rejection.
ALSO GROWS
to'evah: An abomination; something loathed.
תּוֹעֵבָה
The singular form shows the category applied to each act named in the chapter.
ta'av: To abhor or detest.
תָּעַב
The verb reveals the force behind the noun: these are acts regarded with abhorrence.
THE PATTERN
These passages depict certain acts as capable of rupturing a person’s place within a community.
But the living soul who does anything with a raised hand, whether born in the land or a stranger, that one reviles the LORD, and that living soul shall be cut off from among his people.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.But those outside, God will judge. Lift out the wicked one from among yourselves.THE THREAD
And the uncut male, whose flesh of the foreskin is not cut, that living soul shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.Genesis uses the same root, כרת (karat, cut or sever), in the phrase “that soul shall be cut off from his people.” In both verses, nefesh names a living person whose place among their people is severed.
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