What Does Leviticus 23:21 Mean?
And you shall call out on this selfsame day, so that it may be a set-apart assembly for you. You shall do no work of serving in it. It shall be a statute for the ages in all your sitting places throughout your generations.
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 ye shall proclaim on the selfsame day, that it may be an holy convocation unto you: ye shall do no servile work therein: it shall be a statute for ever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “proclaim” shares its root with “convocation”: the announcement is already a summons into gathering.
THE MEANING
The day reaches you as a publicly named gathering, and ordinary labor stops within it. Its set-apartness takes communal form: people assemble, work pauses, and the rhythm is carried through dwellings and generations. Sacred time is something practiced together, not only privately held.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that sacred time is only an inward feeling: this day is proclaimed, shared in assembly, and protected from ordinary work.
THE ROOT
וּקְרָאתֶם
u-qĕrāʾtem
GROWS FROM
קרא
q-r-ʾ
To call, summon, proclaim, read aloud, or name.
“call out” in this verse is u-qĕrāʾtem. The verse uses this root in both “proclaim” and “convocation” (מִקְרָא, miqra). English separates the announcement from the assembly, while Hebrew links them: the proclamation summons the gathering.
ALSO GROWS
miqra: Convocation; something called together, also a public reading.
מִקְרָא
This is the word translated “convocation” in the verse; it shares its root with “proclaim.”
qore: One who calls or reads aloud; a reader.
קֹרֵא
It shows how the same root can describe both summoning people and voicing words before them.
THE PATTERN
A set-apart day takes visible form when a community gathers and ordinary labor pauses or changes.
On the first day there will be a set-apart gathering, and on the seventh day there will be a set-apart gathering for you; no work will be done in them, except what every living soul must eat. Only that may be done by you.If you turn back your foot from the sabbath, from doing your delight on my set-apart day; and call the sabbath a delight, the set-apart of the LORD, weighty; and you shall give it weight by not doing your own ways, nor finding your delight, nor speaking your words.Not leaving behind the gathering of ourselves, as is the habit of some, but urging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.THE THREAD
When all Israel comes to see the face of the LORD your God in the place he will choose, you will call out this instruction before all Israel, in their ears.The word translated “read” comes from קרא (q-r-ʾ), the same root behind “proclaim” and “convocation.” Here, the word’s range opens up: reading aloud becomes a summons heard by a gathered people.
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