What Does Leviticus 20:7 Mean?

So set yourselves apart, and be set apart, for I am the LORD your God.

Leviticus 20:7 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the LORD your God.

THE KEY

One Hebrew root underlies both “sanctify” and “holy,” joining the act of becoming set apart to an identity grounded in belonging to God.

THE MEANING

Your set-apartness takes shape in belonging to the LORD your God. The verse uses one Hebrew root for both setting yourself apart and being set apart, holding your becoming and your identity together.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

It undoes the idea that being set apart means being disconnected: the reason given is relationship, “I am the LORD your God.”

THE ROOT

הִתְקַדִּשְׁתֶּם

wehitqaddishtem

GROWS FROM

קדשׁ

q-d-sh

To set apart or treat as sacred; to be holy.

“set yourselves apart” in this verse is wehitqaddishtem. English makes “sanctify” sound like an action and “holy” like a separate status. Hebrew uses forms of ⁨קדשׁ⁩ (q-d-sh) for both, joining the act of being set apart with the resulting identity; “I am the LORD your God” roots that identity in belonging.

ALSO GROWS

qādôsh: set apart, sacred

קָדוֹשׁ

This is the adjective translated “holy” here, naming the character expressed by the same root’s verbal form.

miqdāsh: sanctuary, sacred place

מִקְדָּשׁ

The same root names a place marked as sacred, showing that set-apartness can describe belonging and designation as well as a personal quality.

THE PATTERN

A set-apart identity takes its character from God’s own set-apartness and is shared by those who belong to God.

And you shall be to me a governance of priests and a set-apart nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.

Exodus 19:6 · SDVThe same ⁨קדש⁩ root calls a whole people a set-apart nation, so holiness names a belonging shared in common.

For I am the LORD your God. Set yourselves apart, and be set apart, for I am set apart. Do not make yourselves unclean through any swarming thing that creeps upon the earth.

Leviticus 11:44 · SDVGod’s own holiness is given as the reason for a set-apart life, echoing this verse’s “I am the LORD your God.”

Because it stands written, You shall be set apart, for I am set apart.

1 Peter 1:16 · SDVThis verse repeats the link between the reader’s set-apart life and God’s holiness.

THE THREAD

And you shall be to me a governance of priests and a set-apart nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.

Exodus 19:6 · SDV

The same Hebrew root ⁨קדשׁ⁩ appears as ⁨קָדוֹשׁ⁩ (qādôsh, “set apart”) in “an holy nation.” This widens Leviticus 20:7’s plural into a shared identity: holiness marks a people belonging together to God.

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