What Does Leviticus 20:3 Mean?
And I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given of his seed to Molech, to soil my set-apart place, and to pierce my set-apart name.
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 I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people; because he hath given of his seed unto Molech, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name.THE KEY
The sanctuary and the holy name share the root of set-apartness, so the offering to Molech breaches one boundary in both the sacred place and the nature carried by the name.
THE MEANING
Here, a man gives his offspring to Molech, and the act defiles the sanctuary and profanes the set-apart name of God. The LORD turns his face against that man and cuts him off from among his people. The verse holds the child’s life, the sacred dwelling, and God’s name together in one consequence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that an offering to a god can remain private devotion while leaving the sanctuary and the giver’s relation to God untouched: the act itself defiles the sanctuary and profanes God’s name.
THE ROOT
מִקְדָּשִׁי
miqdāshī
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh
To set apart, consecrate; what is set apart is sacred.
“set-apart place” in this verse is miqdāshī. “Sanctuary” and “holy” come from the same root: the place and the name share the condition of being set apart. Since a name carries nature, profaning the holy name reaches beyond a location to the nature that name bears.
ALSO GROWS
miqdāsh: Sanctuary; a set-apart place.
מִקְדָּשׁ
This is the word for the sanctuary in the verse, making its set-apartness part of the word itself.
qādōsh: Set apart; holy.
קָדוֹשׁ
The same root describes the holy name, linking the name’s set-apartness with the sanctuary’s.
qādash: To be set apart or to consecrate.
קָדַשׁ
The verb names the act or state behind both the sacred place and the holy name.
מִזַּרְעוֹ
mizzarʿō
GROWS FROM
זרע
z-r-ʿ
To sow; the seed is what is sown and what grows from it, including offspring.
The word for “seed” also means offspring, so the verse speaks of a child as life carried forward. What is handed to Molech is not an abstract possession but the continuation of a human life.
ALSO GROWS
zāraʿ: To sow.
זָרַע
The verb shares the seed-root, joining the act of sowing to the life that grows from it.
zeraʿ: Seed, offspring, descendants.
זֶרַע
This is the same word’s range: “seed” in the verse means the man’s offspring.
לְחַלֵּל
leḥallēl
GROWS FROM
חלל
ḥ-l-l
To profane or violate what is sacred; the root also carries the sense of making it common.
“pierce” in this verse is leḥallēl. The verb presents profanation as treating what is set apart as common. The verse names that breach alongside the defiling of the sanctuary, showing the act reaches both sacred place and divine name.
ALSO GROWS
ḥol: Common; ordinary, not set apart.
חֹל
This word shows the common side of the sacred/common distinction that profanation violates.
ḥillēl: To profane or desecrate.
חִלֵּל
This verbal form names the act the verse says is done to God’s holy name.
THE PATTERN
When what is set apart is defiled, the violation reaches beyond the object and brings the violator under judgment.
Do not give any of your seed to pass through the fire to Molech, and do not pierce the nature of your God. I am the LORD.They slaughtered their sons and their daughters to the demons. They poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and their daughters, whom they slaughtered to the idols of Canaan, and the land was stained with blood.If anyone ruins the temple of God, God will ruin him, for God's temple is set apart, and you are that temple.THE THREAD
Speak to all the assembly of the children of Israel, and say to them, You shall be set apart, for I, the LORD your God, am set apart.Leviticus 20:3 uses the same root for “sanctuary” and “holy”; here that root describes both the people and the LORD. The shared root shows that profaning the name reaches what is set apart in God’s nature as well as the sacred place.
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