What Does Leviticus 20:4 Mean?
If the people of the land ever shut their eyes from the man, when he gives of his seed to Molech, and do not put him to death.
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 the people of the land do any ways hide their eyes from the man, when he giveth of his seed unto Molech, and kill him not:THE KEY
When a community hides its eyes from a person giving his offspring to Molech, the verse treats that refusal to see as a second act of violence.
THE MEANING
When a person gives his offspring to Molech, the community’s decision to hide its eyes and withhold judgment is itself exposed as culpable. The verse speaks now wherever witnesses make a visible act disappear by refusing to respond.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that looking away leaves a community innocent; this verse counts deliberate nonresponse as part of the wrongdoing.
THE ROOT
הַעְלֵם יַעְלִימוּ אֶת־עֵינֵיהֶם
haʿlem yaʿalimu et-ʿeinehem
GROWS FROM
עלם
To conceal, hide, or be out of sight.
“shut their eyes” in this verse is haʿlem yaʿalimu et-ʿeinehem. The Hebrew repeats the same root in an infinitive and a verb, intensifying the act: they hide their eyes indeed. The wrongdoing stays visible; the community’s choice makes it socially unseen.
ALSO GROWS
heʿelim: He hid or concealed.
הֶעְלִים
This causative form names the deliberate act of concealing what is before the eyes.
neʿelam: Hidden or concealed.
נֶעְלָם
What the community hides can become what seems absent, though the act itself has not disappeared.
מִזַּרְעוֹ
mizzarʿo
GROWS FROM
זרע
To sow or scatter seed; as a noun, seed or offspring.
The word זֶרַע (zeraʿ) holds both seed and offspring together. Here the verse speaks of a person giving his own descendants to Molech, while the community’s concealment obscures the human cost.
ALSO GROWS
zaraʿ: To sow or scatter seed.
זָרַע
The verb carries the image of seed being put forth, sharpening the force of what is being given away.
zeraʿ: Seed; offspring or descendants.
זֶרַע
This noun can name both what is sown and the generations that come from it.
THE PATTERN
The text treats looking away from visible harm as an action with moral consequences, not as neutrality.
Whoever gives to the crushed shall not lack, but whoever shuts his eyes shall have many curses.When you spread your palms, I will shut my eyes to you. Even when you multiply your prayers, I will not hear and respond. Your hands are filled with blood.So to the one who has seen the beautiful thing to do, and does not do it, falling short is his.THE THREAD
Whoever gives to the crushed shall not lack, but whoever shuts his eyes shall have many curses.Proverbs uses the same Hebrew root, עלם, for hiding the eyes. In both verses, concealment names a chosen withdrawal from a person whose need or harm remains in view.
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