What Does Leviticus 20:8 Mean?
And keep my statutes, and do them. I am the LORD who sets you apart.
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 ye shall keep my statutes, and do them: I am the LORD which sanctify you.THE KEY
The verse assigns you the guarding and doing, but names the LORD as the one who sets you apart.
THE MEANING
You guard the instruction and put it into practice. The LORD is the one setting you apart, so the verse holds your actions alongside an identity that comes from God.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that flawless performance manufactures your set-apartness: you are called to keep and do, while the LORD is named as the one who sets you apart.
THE ROOT
מְקַדִּשְׁכֶם
məqaddiškem
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh
Set apart, mark as distinct or reserved for sacred use.
“sets you apart” in this verse is məqaddiškem. The form here names the LORD as the one actively setting you apart. This root also forms words for what is set apart and for a sanctuary, revealing set-apartness as an identity with a place in the world.
ALSO GROWS
qadosh: Set apart; belonging to a distinct sphere.
קָדוֹשׁ
It shares the root behind “sanctify,” showing the identity the LORD gives you.
miqdash: Sanctuary; a set-apart place.
מִקְדָּשׁ
It shows the same root describing a place marked as set apart.
וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם
u-shemartem
GROWS FROM
שמר
sh-m-r
Watch over, guard, keep.
The word translated “keep” carries the sense of guarding or watching over. It presents the instruction as something held in attention and practice, not merely retained as information.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: A watcher or keeper.
שֹׁמֵר
This branch makes the watchfulness inside “keep” visible.
mishmeret: A charge, watch, or guard duty.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
It shows the same root describing something entrusted to be kept.
חֻקֹּתַי
ḥuqqotai
GROWS FROM
חקק
ḥ-q-q
Engrave or inscribe; by extension, decree or prescribe.
The word for “statutes” belongs to a root associated with engraving and decreeing. The instruction is given definite shape, fitting the call to guard it and put it into practice.
ALSO GROWS
ḥoq: A decree or prescribed statute.
חֹק
It is the singular form from the same word family as “my statutes.”
mechoqeq: A lawgiver or ruler.
מְחֹקֵק
It shows the root extending from prescribed instruction to the one who decrees it.
THE PATTERN
The text holds instruction practiced by people beside the LORD’s work of setting them apart.
Speak also to the children of Israel, saying, "Surely my sabbaths you shall guard, for it is a sign between me and you through your generations, that you may perceive that I am the LORD who sets you apart."Moreover I also gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might perceive that I am the LORD who sets them apart.And may the God of wholeness himself set you apart through and through, and may your whole breath, living soul, and body be kept blameless until the presence of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One.THE THREAD
Nor shall you pierce my set-apart nature; but I will be set apart among the children of Israel. I am the LORD who sets you apart.The words translated “holy,” “hallowed,” and “hallow” come from קדש (q-d-sh), the same root as “sanctify” here. This verse joins the LORD’s setting apart of the people to how the divine name is held among them, giving that identity a lived expression.
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