What Does Leviticus 20:6 Mean?
And the living soul that turns toward the mediums and toward those who know, to play the harlot after them, I will even set my face against that living soul, and will cut him off from among his people.
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 soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people.THE KEY
The verse answers a soul’s turn toward hidden guidance with God’s face set against that same soul, and its removal from the people.
THE MEANING
When you turn toward mediums and those associated with hidden knowing, the verse calls that pursuit “going a whoring after them.” It depicts God setting his face against that same living self and cutting the person off from among the people; the consequence is severe and communal.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that seeking hidden counsel is a harmless private act: the verse names the pursuit as unfaithfulness and its consequence as severance from the people.
THE ROOT
וְהִכְרַתִּי
ve-hikhrati
GROWS FROM
כרת
To cut, sever, or excise.
“cut him off” in this verse is ve-hikhrati. The same root is used for “cutting a covenant,” while here it names a person severed from the people. The Hebrew makes communal belonging the stakes of the sentence, and its force is actual excision.
ALSO GROWS
karat berit: Cut a covenant.
כָּרַת בְּרִית
The root כרת (karat, cut or sever) can mark a bond made; here it marks a person cut away from the community.
keritut: Severance; divorce.
כְּרִיתוּת
This noun from the same consonants names a formal breaking of a bond, echoing the verse’s language of separation.
נֶפֶשׁ
nefesh
GROWS FROM
נפש
The living self, person, or life; a related verb means to rest or be refreshed.
“living soul” in this verse is nefesh. נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, the living self) names the person, not merely an inner fragment detachable from the body. A related verb describes being refreshed, so this consonant family holds life as a living, refreshable person; here that whole self is addressed.
ALSO GROWS
naphash: To rest or be refreshed.
נָפַשׁ
This related verb links the living self with the possibility of refreshment.
vayinnaphash: And he was refreshed.
וַיִּנָּפֵשׁ
This inflected form uses the same consonants for a living being’s rest or renewal.
הַיִּדְּעֹנִים
hayidde'onim
GROWS FROM
ידע
To know, recognize, or perceive.
“those who know” in this verse is hayidde'onim. The term for these “wizards” is connected to ידע (yada, know), carrying the sense of “knowers.” The verse’s warning centers on where the living self turns for what it claims to know.
ALSO GROWS
yada: To know or recognize.
יָדַע
This is the verb whose consonants underlie the term for the “knowers.”
yedi'ah: Knowledge or information.
יְדִיעָה
This noun shares the root’s consonants and brings the emphasis on knowing into view.
THE PATTERN
Scripture treats seeking or serving other spiritual powers as consequential allegiance, not private curiosity.
Do not turn your faces to those who speak from the pit, nor seek the ones who know, to be soiled by them; I am the LORD your God.No one is found among you who makes his son or his daughter cross through the fire, who divines divinations, who reads clouds, who hisses, or who works spells.But I say that what the nations offer, they offer to demons and not to God, and I do not wish you to become sharers in common with demons.THE THREAD
And the uncut male, whose flesh of the foreskin is not cut, that living soul shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.This verse uses the same Hebrew roots: נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, living self) and כָּרַת (karat, cut off), with the same severance from one’s people. Genesis explicitly names a broken covenant, opening Leviticus’s cutting off as communal excision rather than merely inward disapproval.
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