What Does Leviticus 19:20 Mean?
And whoever lies down with a woman in the lying of seed, who is a bondmaid betrothed to a husband, and not at all ransomed, nor given freedom; she shall be examined; they shall not be put to death, because she was not free.
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
And whosoever lieth carnally with a woman, that is a bondmaid, betrothed to an husband, and not at all redeemed, nor freedom given her; she shall be scourged; they shall not be put to death, because she was not free.THE KEY
The verse makes freedom a legal boundary, yet recognizing the enslaved woman’s unfreedom still leaves her under the lash.
THE MEANING
The verse places the woman’s constrained status inside the judgment: she is not redeemed, and no freedom is given her. Her unfreedom changes the penalty, she is not put to death, yet she is scourged; the text holds the reduced sentence and the violence against her in the same line.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that naming a person’s coercion ends the harm done to her: her lack of freedom changes the sentence, but does not spare her the scourge.
THE ROOT
נִפְדָּתָה
nifdetah
GROWS FROM
פדה
To ransom, redeem, or release by intervention.
“ransomed” in this verse is nifdetah. The root gives “redeemed” the concrete sense of release from a binding claim. Beside the statement that no freedom was granted, it marks ransom and liberty as distinct thresholds in the woman’s status.
ALSO GROWS
pādâ: To ransom or redeem.
פָּדָה
This verb names the act the verse says has not taken place.
pidyôn: Ransom or redemption payment.
פִּדְיוֹן
This noun makes the root’s release concrete: redemption involves a ransom, not merely a change in description.
חֻפָּשָׁה
ḥuppāšāh
GROWS FROM
חפשׁ
To be free or released from bondage.
The verse uses this root both for the freedom that has not been granted and for the reason the woman is not put to death. Liberty is a concrete condition shaping the judgment, even while the scourging remains.
ALSO GROWS
ḥophshî: Free, released from servitude.
חָפְשִׁי
This form describes a servant’s status after release, showing the concrete meaning of the freedom at issue here.
ḥōpheš: Freedom or liberty.
חֹפֶשׁ
The noun keeps freedom visible as a condition that can be absent or granted, rather than an abstract idea.
THE PATTERN
Freedom is a concrete legal condition: its presence or absence changes what may be done to a person’s body.
And if a man strikes the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, so that it is ruined, he sends him free for the sake of his eye.You shall not hand over to his master the servant who has escaped from his master to you.Were you called as a servant? Let it not weigh on you. But if you are able to become free, rather make use of it.THE THREAD
If you buy a Hebrew servant, six years he serves, and in the seventh he goes out free for nothing.Exodus uses the same Hebrew root for “free” that Leviticus uses for the freedom not granted to the woman. Here, release is a defined status; in Leviticus, its absence shapes the judgment.
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