What Does Leviticus 20:25 Mean?
You shall therefore separate between clean animals and unclean, and between unclean winged things and clean. You shall not make your living souls recoil by animal, or by winged thing, or by any crawling thing upon the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean.
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
Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean: and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean.THE KEY
The same Hebrew root says both “put difference” and “separated,” linking the boundary among animals to the boundary around your own living self.
THE MEANING
This verse reaches your present choices with a concrete distinction between clean animals and unclean ones. It says what you take in affects your living self, and that the LORD has separated certain creatures for you as unclean.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what you consume is religiously neutral: here, the creature’s assigned status matters to the condition of your living self.
THE ROOT
וְהִבְדַּלְתֶּם
vehivdaltem
GROWS FROM
בדל
To divide, separate, or distinguish.
“separate between” in this verse is vehivdaltem. The verse uses this root first for the distinction you make between clean and unclean, then for what the LORD has separated as unclean. The boundary is the same act in both phrases: separation makes the categories visible.
ALSO GROWS
vayavdel: He separated or divided.
וַיַּבְדֵּל
Genesis 1:4 uses this form when God divides light from darkness, the same root that names the distinction here.
nivdal: Separated or set apart.
נִבְדָּל
This form describes the resulting state of being distinct, echoing the creatures that the verse says are separated as unclean.
תְשַׁקְּצוּ
teshaqqetsu
GROWS FROM
שקץ
To regard as detestable or make detestable.
“recoil” in this verse is teshaqqetsu. The verb places the effect on your own living self: the verse says not to make your souls detestable through these creatures. It connects the animal boundary to the condition of the person who crosses it.
ALSO GROWS
sheqets: A detestable thing.
שֶׁקֶץ
This noun shares the root and shows how the verse’s language of making detestable also names what is regarded as detestable.
shiqquts: A detestable thing or abomination.
שִׁקּוּץ
This related noun carries the same root into the language of abomination, clarifying the force of “abominable” here.
לְטָמֵא
letame
GROWS FROM
טמא
To be or make unclean.
The verse ends by naming “unclean” as the category into which the LORD has separated these creatures. The term describes a specific status in the verse, not a loose synonym for dirt.
ALSO GROWS
tame: Unclean.
טָמֵא
This adjective names the category assigned to the creatures in the verse.
tumah: Uncleanness or impurity.
טֻמְאָה
This noun names the state associated with the same root, showing that “unclean” is a defined condition in the verse.
THE PATTERN
God’s act of separating makes distinctions consequential: what is set apart cannot be treated as interchangeable.
And God saw the light, that it was good, and God parted the light from the darkness.And that you may divide between the set-apart and the common, and between the unclean and the clean.Therefore, go out from their midst, and be marked off, says the LORD, and do not take hold of what is unclean. And I will take you in.THE THREAD
And God saw the light, that it was good, and God parted the light from the darkness.“Divided” in Genesis and “put difference” and “separated” in Leviticus all come from בדל (badal, to separate or distinguish). The same root links creation’s division of light from darkness with the distinction between clean and unclean creatures.
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