What Does Leviticus 20:16 Mean?
And if a woman draws near any animal, and lies down with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal. They shall surely die; their blood is upon them.
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 if a woman approach unto any beast, and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman, and the beast: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.THE KEY
The Hebrew moves from a verb of killing to a doubled death formula, making the sentence’s violence explicit in two different ways.
THE MEANING
This sentence confronts you with the ordered deaths of both the woman and the beast, then places their blood upon them. It leaves the violence unsoftened and gives no explanation for it within the verse.
THE ROOT
מוֹת יוּמָתוּ
môt yûmātû
GROWS FROM
מות
to die; death
“shall surely die” in this verse is môt yûmātû. The phrase repeats the root: מוֹת (môt) is followed by יוּמָתוּ (yûmātû), intensifying the death sentence. English conveys that emphasis with “surely,” while Hebrew makes it audible through the doubled root.
ALSO GROWS
māvet: death
מָוֶת
This noun grows from the same root and makes the sentence’s central outcome explicit.
mēt: dead
מֵת
This form names the resulting state, extending the same root from dying to the condition the sentence imposes.
תִּקְרַב
tiqrav
GROWS FROM
קרב
to draw near; approach
“draws near” in this verse is tiqrav. Here the verb describes physical approach to a beast; the same root also carries the idea of nearness and bringing something near. That wider family shows the concrete force of “approach” without changing or spiritualizing what the sentence names.
ALSO GROWS
qarov: near; close
קָרוֹב
It shares the root’s sense of nearness, showing that the verse’s verb belongs to a wider language of drawing close.
qorbān: a drawing near; offering
קָרְבָּן
This branch uses the same root for something brought near, revealing the root’s broader sense of approach.
THE PATTERN
These texts name the consequence of violence in the same breath as the violent act.
Whoever pours out the blood of man, by man his blood shall be poured out, for in the shape of God he made man.He who strikes a man so that he dies is surely put to death.Then Jesus said to him, Turn your sword back to its place, for all who take up the sword will perish by the sword.THE THREAD
Whoever lies down with a beast shall surely be put to death.This verse uses the same doubled מות formula, מוֹת יוּמָת (môt yûmāt), “shall surely be put to death.” The shared wording reveals the repeated death-root in the sentence applied to both cases.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us