What Does Leviticus 19:13 Mean?
You shall not press your neighbor, nor tear from him; the wage of the hired hand shall not lodge with you all night until the morning.
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
Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning.THE KEY
Keeping someone’s earned wage overnight is placed beside fraud and robbery: delay itself can be a way of taking.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to every moment another person’s earned pay sits under your control: the worker remains entitled to what their labor has earned. It places fraud, robbery, and holding wages overnight in one line, showing that delay can make possession unjust even without a forceful seizure.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A payment is not harmless to withhold just because you intend to give it later; the verse treats keeping another’s wage overnight as part of the same wrong as fraud and robbery.
THE ROOT
שָׂכִיר
sakhir
GROWS FROM
שכר
sakar
To hire or pay wages; hire, wages, or reward.
“hired hand” in this verse is sakhir. The word for the hired worker belongs to the same root family as words for hire and wages, keeping person and payment linguistically bound. The wage is not a discretionary favor detached from the one hired.
ALSO GROWS
sakhar: To hire or pay wages.
שָׂכַר
The act of hiring gives the worker’s claim to payment its root-level counterpart.
sakhar: Hire, wages, or reward.
שָׂכָר
This branch names the payment that belongs with the hired worker.
תָּלִין
talin
GROWS FROM
לון
lun
To lodge or pass the night.
“lodge” in this verse is talin. The verb carries the image of lodging: the worker’s wage is barred from spending the night in another’s keeping. That makes the deadline an image of custody, not a vague instruction to pay eventually.
ALSO GROWS
linah: A lodging or overnight stay.
לִינָה
The noun keeps the overnight image audible inside the command about wages.
malon: A lodging place or inn.
מָלוֹן
This branch makes concrete the sense of something being kept overnight.
פְּעֻלָּה
pe'ullah
GROWS FROM
פעל
pa'al
To do, work, or perform.
The word for the wage grows from the root for doing or working, keeping the worker’s deed visible inside the payment. What is being held is not an abstract sum, but the return attached to someone’s work.
ALSO GROWS
pa'al: To do or work.
פָּעַל
The root names the activity from which the wage arises.
po'el: A worker; one who acts or works.
פֹּעֵל
This branch names the person whose work the wage answers.
THE PATTERN
A worker’s earned pay remains bound to the worker, so withholding it past its due time is treated as taking.
On his day you give him his wage, and the sun does not go down upon it, for he is bowed down and carries his living soul toward it. Lest he call out against you to the LORD, and it be missing in you.Look, the wages of the workers who mowed your fields, stripped away by your fraud, cry out, and the cries of those who reaped have gone into the ears of the LORD of hosts.And remain in that same house, eating and drinking what they give, for the worker is worthy of his pay. Do not step from house to house.THE THREAD
On his day you give him his wage, and the sun does not go down upon it, for he is bowed down and carries his living soul toward it. Lest he call out against you to the LORD, and it be missing in you.The Hebrew noun behind “him that is hired” is שָׂכִיר (sakhir), “hired worker”; Deuteronomy uses a form of the same root שכר (sakar), “hire, wages,” for “his hire.” This shared root binds the worker to the payment, while Deuteronomy makes the deadline unmistakable: that day’s wage is due before sunset.
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