What Does Leviticus 19:11 Mean?
You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to the one beside 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 not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another.THE KEY
The verse places stolen possessions, deceptive denial, and lies together because trust between people can be taken as surely as property.
THE MEANING
Your relationships depend on not taking what belongs to another, denying what is true between you, or making falsehood the bond. The verse places possessions and truth in the same shared space: what you conceal from another person’s hand and what you distort with your words both damage trust.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie it undoes is that deception is harmless if no object changes hands. Here, false dealing and lying stand beside stealing because trust itself can be taken from another.
THE ROOT
גנב
ganav
GROWS FROM
גנב
g-n-b
To take secretly; to steal.
“steal” in this verse is ganav. The root carries concealment within the act of taking. Its branches name both the hidden act and the person who performs it, showing that what is taken includes the security another person depends on.
ALSO GROWS
ganav: To steal or take secretly.
גָּנַב
This is the verb in the verse: the taking is concealed from the person whose property is taken.
gannav: Thief.
גַּנָּב
The same root names the person behind the hidden taking, making the breach of trust visible.
genevah: Theft.
גְּנֵבָה
The noun names the taking as an injury in its own right, placed here alongside false dealing and lies.
כחש
kachash
GROWS FROM
כחש
k-ḥ-sh
To deny, disown, or deal deceitfully.
“deal falsely” in this verse is kachash. The root can describe denial as well as deceitful dealing, so the breach reaches beyond a false transaction: it can erase what another person knows to be true. Set beside stealing and lying, it shows how deception takes hold of the shared reality between people.
ALSO GROWS
kichesh: He denied or disowned.
כִּחֵשׁ
This verb form shows the root’s connection to denying what is true.
kachash: To deal falsely or deceive.
כָּחַשׁ
This is the root’s deceitful sense echoed in the verse.
שקר
shaqar
GROWS FROM
שקר
sh-q-r
To lie or speak falsely; falsehood.
“lie” in this verse is shaqar. The verse names lying after deceitful dealing, giving falsehood its own place in the harm between people. The related noun names falsehood itself, so the root holds both the act of lying and the untrue thing it leaves behind.
ALSO GROWS
shaqar: To lie or deceive.
שָׁקַר
This verb is the verse’s direct word for lying to another person.
sheqer: Falsehood or a lie.
שֶׁקֶר
This noun names the false thing that the spoken lie puts between people.
THE PATTERN
Shared life is protected when people refuse deceit and speak truth to one another.
These are the things you shall do. Speak each man the truth to his neighbor, and judge the judgment of truth and wholeness in your gates.Therefore, taking off lying, speak truth, each one with his neighbor, for we are limbs of one another.Lying lips make the LORD recoil, but those who work in trust are his delight.THE THREAD
By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood touches blood.Hosea uses the same roots for deceitful denial (כחש, kachash) and stealing (גנב, ganav) that appear in this verse. Their appearance alongside killing and adultery shows how these breaches gather into a collapse of trust between people.
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