What Does Leviticus 21:19 Mean?
Or a man whose foot is broken, or whose hand is broken.
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
Or a man that is brokenfooted, or brokenhanded,THE KEY
The Hebrew repeats one word for fracture in both foot and hand, marking one bodily condition across two different limbs.
THE MEANING
This verse names a broken foot or hand as a boundary on a priest’s approach to altar service. The following verse still gives him a share in holy food. The text holds restricted function and continued provision together in the reader’s present.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A bodily limitation means total exclusion from sacred life.
THE ROOT
שֶׁבֶר
shever
GROWS FROM
שבר
To break or fracture.
“whose foot is broken” in this verse is shever. The Hebrew repeats shever, fracture, once for the foot and once for the hand: the body parts differ, but the named condition is the same. In the surrounding rule, that fracture limits altar service while the next verse preserves the priest’s share in holy food.
ALSO GROWS
shavar: To break or shatter.
שָׁבַר
The verb shows the action carried by the root behind the noun for fracture.
shavur: Broken or fractured.
שָׁבוּר
This form appears in the offering rules for a broken animal, linking the same root to altar eligibility.
THE PATTERN
A bodily limitation can restrict a particular role while provision or welcome remains available.
He eats the bread of his God, from the most set-apart, and from the set-apart.So Mephibosheth settled in Jerusalem, for he ate always at the king's table, and was struck in both his feet.But when you make a feast, call the emptied, the maimed, the lame, the blind.THE THREAD
Blind, or broken, or maimed, or with a swelling, or with scurvy, or with a scab, you shall not bring these near to the LORD, nor give of them by fire upon the altar to the LORD.Leviticus 22:22 uses the same שבר root for a broken animal barred from altar offering. The shared word locates this fracture within a boundary around altar eligibility; the surrounding lines distinguish that boundary from the priest’s continued share in holy food.
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