What Does Leviticus 20:1 Mean?
And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying.
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 the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,THE KEY
Before the command is named, the voice addresses Moses, whose name carries the meaning “drawn out”: the message begins with address.
THE MEANING
You meet this verse at the threshold of a message: the LORD’s speech is present, while its content is still opening. Moses’ name carries the meaning “drawn out,” so the address reaches a figure whose name holds the image of emergence.
THE ROOT
וַיְדַבֵּר
waydabbēr
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
to speak, address
The same root gives dābār, meaning both “word” and “matter”: speech is tied to what is being disclosed. The verse’s “spake … saying” opens the address first, then the words that follow.
ALSO GROWS
dābār: word, matter, thing
דָּבָר
The spoken address carries the substance that is about to be revealed.
dibbēr: spoke, addressed
דִּבֵּר
This is the same root in its speaking form, showing that the verse begins with a direct act of address.
מֹשֶׁה
Mōsheh
GROWS FROM
משׁה
m-sh-h
to draw out
The name Moses is linked in Exodus 2:10 to the act of drawing him out of the water. Here the spoken address reaches the one whose name carries that image of being drawn out.
ALSO GROWS
māšâ: to draw out
מָשָׁה
This verb is the root behind the name’s meaning in Exodus 2:10.
Mōsheh: Moses; the one drawn out
מֹשֶׁה
The name brings the image of emergence into the verse’s moment of address.
THE PATTERN
A spoken address gathers a listener before its message is disclosed.
And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him from the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here I am.So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but shall do what I delight in, and shall break through in the thing to which I sent it.My sheep hear and respond to my voice, and I perceive them, and they follow me.THE THREAD
And he said to me, Son of man, stand upon your feet, and I will speak with you.The same Hebrew root, דבר, underlies “spake” here and “speak” in Ezekiel. There the address moves into a specific word, making visible the next step that Leviticus leaves just beyond its opening phrase.
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