What Does Leviticus 19:2 Mean?
Speak to all the assembly of the children of Israel, and say to them, You shall be set apart, for I, the LORD your God, am set apart.
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
Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy: for I the LORD your God am holy.THE KEY
One root names both your calling and God’s nature: set-apartness is shared, not self-invented.
THE MEANING
You are addressed as part of a whole congregation, and your set-apartness takes its measure from the LORD who is your God. The same root names both what God is and what this people is called to be; the distinction is bound to belonging to him.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Set-apartness is a private status you create by being better than other people.
THE ROOT
קְדֹשִׁים
qedoshim
GROWS FROM
קדש
Q-D-Sh
To be set apart; to be sacred.
The verse uses forms of the same root for the congregation’s calling and the LORD’s own nature. English can make “holy” sound like a quality reserved for God, but the Hebrew repeats the root across both: what marks God as set apart also names what the people are called to embody.
ALSO GROWS
qodesh: Holiness; sacredness; that which is set apart.
קֹדֶשׁ
This noun shows that the root names not only a quality but also the sacred sphere associated with it.
qiddesh: Set apart; sanctified.
קִדֵּשׁ
This verb makes visible the action behind the calling: setting apart is the root’s movement, not merely a label.
THE PATTERN
The people are called to embody the same set-apartness named in God.
And you shall be to me a governance of priests and a set-apart nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.And you shall be set apart to me, for I, the LORD, am set apart, and I have separated you from the peoples, that you shall be mine.Because it stands written, You shall be set apart, for I am set apart.THE THREAD
And you shall be set apart to me, for I, the LORD, am set apart, and I have separated you from the peoples, that you shall be mine.The same set-apart root appears in both “ye shall be holy” and “I the LORD am holy,” then the verse names the result: “that ye should be mine.” The calling is bound to belonging.
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