What Does Leviticus 22:11 Mean?
But if the priest buys any living soul with his silver, he shall eat of it, and whoever is born in his house; they shall eat of his bread.
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
But if the priest buy any soul with his money, he shall eat of it, and he that is born in his house: they shall eat of his meat.THE KEY
“Soul” here means a living person: the verse includes someone bought by the priest among those who eat from his household’s food.
THE MEANING
The verse places the priest’s household at the boundary of this food: the person he buys with money and those born in his house eat from it. “Soul” names a living person, and the verse ties access to the food to that person’s place in the household, whether acquired or born there.
THE ROOT
נֶפֶשׁ
nephesh
GROWS FROM
נפש
n-p-sh
A living self or person; life understood as a concrete being.
“living soul” in this verse is nephesh. The word rendered “soul” names a person, not a detachable spiritual part. Here that person is bought with money, bringing the living human being and the household’s ownership structure into the same sentence.
ALSO GROWS
naphash: To rest or refresh oneself.
נָפַשׁ
This related verb keeps the root connected to the condition of a living self, rather than an abstract spiritual entity.
nephashot: Persons or lives; the plural of nephesh.
נְפָשׁוֹת
The plural makes the word’s concrete sense clear: nephesh can refer to countable people, as it does here.
יְלִיד
yelid
GROWS FROM
ילד
y-l-d
To beget, bear, or bring forth.
“born” in this verse is yelid. The verse places birth beside purchase as a second route into the priest’s household. The root also forms words for a child and for generations, connecting household belonging to both birth and descent.
ALSO GROWS
yalad: To bear, give birth, or beget.
יָלַד
This is the root’s verbal form and makes the birth route named in the verse explicit.
yeled: A child or young person.
יֶלֶד
The child formed from this root shows how the verse’s “born in his house” belongs to the language of birth and kinship.
יִקְנֶה
yiqneh
GROWS FROM
קנה
q-n-h
To acquire, buy, or possess.
“buy” in this verse is yiqneh. The verse uses the language of acquisition for how this person enters the household. Beside nephesh, the root holds the passage’s tension plainly: a living person is described within a relation of purchase.
ALSO GROWS
qanah: To buy, acquire, or possess.
קָנָה
This is the root verb behind the priest’s purchase of the person named in the verse.
miqneh: Livestock or acquired possessions.
מִקְנֶה
This related noun makes the root’s association with acquired property visible alongside the verse’s use of it for a person.
THE PATTERN
In these texts, access to a household’s food follows a recognized place within that household.
But every man's servant, bought with silver, when you have circumcised him, then he will eat of it.And this is yours. The lifted offering of their gift, with all the wave offerings of the children of Israel, I have given to you, and to your sons and your daughters with you, by a statute for the ages. Everyone who is clean in your house shall eat of it.And bring the grain-fed calf and slaughter it, and let us eat and be glad.THE THREAD
And the LORD God shaped the ground-being, Adam, from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul.The phrase “living soul” contains the same Hebrew word, nephesh, as Leviticus’s “soul.” Genesis uses it for a living human being, opening this verse’s purchased nephesh as a person in material household terms, not a detachable spirit.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us