What Does Leviticus 19:23 Mean?
And when you come into the land and plant every tree for food, then you shall count its fruit as uncircumcised; for three years it shall be uncircumcised to you; it shall not be eaten.
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 when ye shall come into the land, and shall have planted all manner of trees for food, then ye shall count the fruit thereof as uncircumcised: three years shall it be as uncircumcised unto you: it shall not be eaten of.THE KEY
The tree’s first visible fruit is still called “uncircumcised”: growth appears before it becomes food.
THE MEANING
When you plant a tree for food, its fruit remains uncircumcised to you for three years, and you do not eat it. The text draws a boundary between fruit appearing and fruit becoming available to consume.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that anything that has grown is already yours to use.
THE ROOT
עֲרֵלִים
ʿărēlîm
GROWS FROM
ערל
ʿ-r-l
Foreskin; uncircumcised, with biblical uses that also describe what is covered or impeded.
“uncircumcised” in this verse is ʿărēlîm. The verse labels the fruit with the word family of “foreskin,” picturing its first yield as still covered and not open to eating. Scripture uses the same root for lips and a heart, extending that image to impeded openness.
ALSO GROWS
ʿorlāh: Foreskin
עָרְלָה
This is the same root’s concrete covering image, which makes the verse’s description of young fruit more vivid.
ʿăral śəpātāyim: Uncircumcised lips
עֲרַל שְׂפָתָיִם
The same root describes impeded speech, showing how its image extends beyond the body’s covering.
ʿorlat levavkhem: Foreskin of your heart
עָרְלַת לְבַבְכֶם
The same image is applied to the heart, where it describes a covering that affects openness.
פִּרְיוֹ
piryo
GROWS FROM
פרה
p-r-h
To bear fruit; to be fruitful.
The word for fruit belongs to the same family as the verb “to be fruitful.” The tree can visibly bear fruit while the text still withholds it from eating, separating fruitfulness from availability.
ALSO GROWS
perî: Fruit, produce
פְּרִי
This is the noun at the center of the verse: the tree’s visible yield is present, but it is not yet food for you.
pārāh: To bear fruit, be fruitful
פָּרָה
The related verb names the tree’s capacity to produce, while the verse sets a separate boundary around consuming what it produces.
THE PATTERN
A first yield is marked or held apart before it becomes ordinary use.
But in the fourth year all its fruit shall be set apart for praise to the LORD.The first of the first-ripened of your ground you shall bring into the house of the LORD your God. You shall not boil a kid in his mother's milk.But now the Anointed One has been awakened from the dead, and has become the first portion of those who have lain down to sleep.THE THREAD
So cut the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stiff-necked.The Hebrew עָרְלָה (ʿorlāh, foreskin) uses the same root as the word describing the fruit here. Deuteronomy applies that covering image to the heart, making the orchard’s “uncircumcised” fruit part of a wider biblical picture of what remains covered or impeded.
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