What Does Leviticus 19:9 Mean?
And when you cut the harvest of your land, you shall not finish cutting to the edge of your field, nor gather up what falls from your harvest.
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 reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest.THE KEY
The harvest is not complete when every stalk is claimed; its uncut edge is already a share for someone else.
THE MEANING
Your labor can bring a harvest without making every stalk yours to collect. Its edges stay open, and what falls remains gatherable; what is left behind is part of the harvest’s design.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a harvest is complete only when nothing remains to take. The verse places a limit inside abundance: some of what you could gather remains another person’s share.
THE ROOT
לִקְצֹר
liqtsor
GROWS FROM
ק־צ־ר
Cut, shorten; by extension, reap.
The root carries both reaping and being short: a cut makes something smaller. Here, the cutting is deliberately left incomplete, so what remains in the field is part of the harvest’s measure.
ALSO GROWS
qatsir: Harvest
קָצִיר
The harvest is named from the same root as the act of cutting it, linking the gathered yield to the cut that produced it.
qotser: Shortness
קֹצֶר
This branch preserves the root’s sense of being cut short, echoing the passage’s refusal to carry the harvest all the way to its edge.
לֶקֶט
leqet
GROWS FROM
ל־ק־ט
Gather, pick up.
“what falls” in this verse is leqet. The verse names the leftovers with the same root used for gathering them. What remains is not discarded waste; it is still a gatherable portion.
ALSO GROWS
laqat: Gather, pick up, glean
לָקַט
This is the gathering act that makes the remaining portion available.
leqet: Gleanings
לֶקֶט
This noun names what can still be gathered after the main harvest has been taken.
THE PATTERN
Provision becomes shareable when the one harvesting leaves part of the abundance within reach of another.
When you cut down your harvest in your field, and forget a sheaf in the field, you do not turn back to take hold of it. It is for the sojourner, for the fatherless, and for the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the making of your hands.He answered and said to them, Whoever has two tunics, let him give a share to the one who has none; and whoever has food, let him do likewise.THE THREAD
When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, you do not pick it over afterward. It is for the sojourner, for the fatherless, and for the widow.“Glean” here translates תְּלַקֵּט (telaqqet), from the same לקט (laqat) root as the “gleanings” in Leviticus. This verse names who the remaining portion is for, revealing the gleanings as provision already held open for another.
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