What Does Leviticus 22:26 Mean?
And the LORD said to Moses, saying,
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 the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,THE KEY
The Hebrew root behind “spake” also gives davar, “word” and “matter,” so what follows is speech already carrying the substance of the matter.
THE MEANING
This verse meets you with instruction as direct, particular speech: something is being said, and the matter is about to unfold. Moses’ name carries the image of one drawn out of water, so the word comes to one whose name already holds that movement.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that divine instruction is only anonymous or abstract: here the word is spoken to a named recipient.
THE ROOT
וַיְדַבֵּר
wayyedabber
GROWS FROM
ד־ב־ר
d-b-r
To speak or utter; its noun branch davar means word and can also mean matter or thing.
“spake” in this verse is wayyedabber. The verb is from דבר, whose noun davar means “word” and can also mean “matter” or “thing.” The root makes the speech a word with substance: what is spoken here is the matter about to unfold.
ALSO GROWS
dibber: Spoke; uttered.
דִּבֵּר
This verbal form shows the root active in the verse: the LORD speaks.
davar: Word; matter or thing.
דָּבָר
The spoken word can also name the matter under discussion, so the speech carries the content about to unfold.
מֹשֶׁה
Moshe
GROWS FROM
מ־שׁ־ה
m-sh-h
To draw out, especially from water.
Exodus 2:10 associates Moses’ name with mashah, “to draw out,” because he was drawn from the water. The recipient of the word carries the image of one drawn out.
ALSO GROWS
mashah: To draw out.
מָשָׁה
This is the verb associated with Moses’ name and gives the name its image of being brought out.
meshithihu: I drew him out.
מְשִׁיתִהוּ
This form appears in Exodus 2:10, where Pharaoh’s daughter explains the name Moses through the act of drawing him out of the water.
THE PATTERN
Divine speech arrives as a directed encounter, with a named hearer and a specific word.
And it came to pass after these words, God tested Abraham, and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am."And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him from the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here I am.And he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why do you pursue me?THE THREAD
With him I will speak mouth to mouth, in sight and not in hidden sayings, and he will gaze upon the shape of the LORD. Why then were you not in awe to speak against my servant Moses?“Speak” here comes from the same דבר root as “spake” in Leviticus 22:26, and Moses is named in both verses. Numbers makes the directness of that speech vivid: it is described as mouth-to-mouth, not as a distant abstraction.
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