What Does Leviticus 21:15 Mean?
Nor does he pierce his seed among his people, for I the LORD sets him 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
Neither shall he profane his seed among his people: for I the LORD do sanctify him.THE KEY
The verse’s hidden hinge is that a man can make his lineage common even while the LORD sets him apart.
THE MEANING
The verse holds a boundary between a set-apart life and its continuing line among the people: the seed can be profaned, made common. It locates the priest’s set-apartness in the LORD, who is the one setting him apart.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being set apart makes the lineage one carries forward immune to profanation.
THE ROOT
יְחַלֵּל
yeḥallēl
GROWS FROM
חלל
ḥ-l-l
To profane or desecrate; to make common.
“pierce” in this verse is yeḥallēl. Here, profaning is more than insulting what is set apart: it is making the seed common among the people. That sharpens the contrast with the LORD’s act of setting the priest apart.
ALSO GROWS
ḥol: Common, ordinary; not set apart.
חֹל
This noun exposes the concrete opposite carried by the verb: to profane is to treat as ordinary what is set apart.
ḥillul: Profanation, desecration.
חִלּוּל
This noun names the boundary violation itself, clarifying that profaning is an action done to what is set apart.
מְקַדְּשׁוֹ
məqaddĕšô
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh
To be set apart or to set apart.
“sets him apart” in this verse is məqaddĕšô. The LORD is explicitly the agent who sets the priest apart, so this status is received, not self-named. The same root names the set-apart person and the sanctuary, giving this separation a concrete sense of belonging and boundary.
ALSO GROWS
qādôsh: Set apart.
קָדוֹשׁ
This adjective names the quality the LORD gives the priest in the verse.
miqdāsh: Sanctuary; set-apart place.
מִקְדָּשׁ
The sanctuary belongs to the same word-family, showing that set-apartness marks both a person and a place.
זַרְעוֹ
zarʿô
GROWS FROM
זרע
z-r-ʿ
To sow; seed or offspring.
Hebrew keeps the image of sowing even when the word means descendants: seed is what continues life beyond the one who carries it. What is made common here reaches forward as lineage among the people, not just as a private status.
ALSO GROWS
zāraʿ: To sow.
זָרַע
The verb preserves the image of planting and carrying life forward.
zeraʿ: Seed, offspring, descendants.
זֶרַע
The noun carries that planting image into lineage, making the verse’s concern about what continues among the people visible.
THE PATTERN
The LORD sets people apart, giving them a distinct identity that is carried among others.
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.Set them apart through your truth; your word is truth.And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were set apart, but you were aligned, in the nature of the Lord Jesus and in the breath of our God.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.This verse repeats both roots at the communal scale: people profane (חלל) what is set apart, while the LORD sets people apart (קדש). It makes the tension in Leviticus 21:15 visible: the priest can profane his seed, while his own set-apartness rests in the LORD’s action.
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