What Does Leviticus 22:31 Mean?
Therefore you shall guard my commands, and do them. I am the LORD.
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
Therefore shall ye keep my commandments, and do them: I am the LORD.THE KEY
The verse makes keeping a command a two-part movement: guard the instruction, then let it take form in what you do.
THE MEANING
The instruction reaches you as something to hold in watchful attention and bring into your actions; guarding and doing belong together. “I am the LORD” keeps the charge attached to the identity of the one speaking.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the idea that keeping a command is finished once its words are remembered; here, keeping reaches completion as the command takes form in action.
THE ROOT
וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם
u-shemartem
GROWS FROM
שמר
shamar
To watch, guard, or preserve.
English “keep” can sound like bare compliance, but שָׁמַר (shamar, to guard or watch) carries the sense of sustained attention. The verse pairs that guarding with doing, so what is kept in view moves into action.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: Keeper or guard.
שֹׁמֵר
The keeper stays watchful over what has been entrusted, echoing the attention the verse gives its instruction.
mishmeret: Charge, watch, or guard duty.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
This branch can name what is entrusted to someone’s care, illuminating the commandments as a charge to be kept.
מִצְוֹתַי
mitzvotai
GROWS FROM
צוה
tsavah
To command, charge, or direct.
“commandments” in this verse is mitzvotai. The word carries the sense of a directed charge, not only a detached rule. Paired with guarding, the charge is held in attention and enacted under the name of the one who gives it.
ALSO GROWS
tsivvah: He commanded or directed.
צִוָּה
The verb shows the act of giving direction that stands behind the commandment.
mitzvah: Command or charge.
מִצְוָה
This noun names the directed charge that the verse says to guard and carry into action.
THE PATTERN
Instruction becomes a living pattern when what is kept in attention is carried into action.
To those who guard his covenant, and remember his appointments to do them.If you love me, guard my instructions.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.THE THREAD
Guard them therefore and do them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, who will hear all these statutes and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.Deuteronomy repeats the Hebrew roots שמר (shamar, to guard) and עשה (asah, to do or make) in the same pairing. It opens this verse further by showing how guarded instruction takes outward form as action.
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