What Does Leviticus 19:19 Mean?
You shall guard my statutes. You shall not let your livestock multiply with another kind; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed; nor shall a garment of two kinds, linen and wool, come upon 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 keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.THE KEY
The repeated כִּלְאַיִם (kil’ayim, mixed kinds) carries one boundary across breeding, planting, and clothing.
THE MEANING
The verse places breeding, planting, and clothing within statutes to be guarded. Its repeated כִּלְאַיִם (kil’ayim, mixed kinds) marks a boundary that reaches from living bodies to land and fabric.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that divine instruction concerns only inward conviction: here it reaches into breeding, planting, and clothing.
THE ROOT
תִּשְׁמֹרוּ
tishmeru
GROWS FROM
שמר
sh-m-r
To watch, guard, or preserve.
“guard” in this verse is tishmeru. Here, “keep” is not only retaining statutes; it is guarding them. The same root can name a watchman and a charge entrusted to watch, making the verse’s boundaries something actively held.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: Watchman, guard
שֹׁמֵר
This branch makes the guarding sense of “keep” visible: the statutes are held under watch.
mishmeret: Charge, watch, duty
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
This branch connects keeping with a responsibility entrusted to someone, rather than mere possession.
תִּזְרַע
tizraʿ
GROWS FROM
זרע
z-r-ʿ
To sow; the same root also names seed and offspring.
“sow” in this verse is tizraʿ. The sowing verb belongs to the same root as seed and offspring, joining what enters the field with what it can bring forth. Beside animal breeding and clothing, planting becomes part of the verse’s wider concern with distinct kinds and their continuance.
ALSO GROWS
zeraʿ: Seed, offspring
זֶרַע
This branch links what is planted with the language of lineage and what comes forth.
zoreaʿ: Sower, one who sows
זֹרֵעַ
This branch keeps the act of sowing connected to the seed’s potential future.
THE PATTERN
Scripture uses each kind’s fruit as a visible sign of the boundaries that order life.
And God said, "Let the earth sprout green growth, the seed-bearing plant, and the fruit tree making fruit after its kind, whose seed is in it, upon the earth." And it was so.You shall not sow your vineyard with mixed kinds, lest the fullness of the seed you have sown and the yield of the vineyard become set apart.Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a vine bear figs? Neither can a spring yield both salt and sweet water.THE THREAD
And the LORD God took Adam and set him down in the garden of Eden, to serve it and to guard it.The word translated “keep” here shares the root שמר (sh-m-r, to guard or watch) with Leviticus 19:19. In both verses, keeping names a form of guardianship over a living order.
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