What Does Leviticus 23:31 Mean?
You shall do no work of any kind. It shall be a statute for the ages throughout your generations in all your sitting places.
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
Ye shall do no manner of work: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.THE KEY
The word translated “statute” carries the image of an engraved boundary, so the no-work command is written into every age and every dwelling.
THE MEANING
The command sets work down, and its boundary carries through the ages, across generations, and into every dwelling. Its reach is part of ordinary life wherever you settle.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a sacred limit belongs only to one place or one generation: this command reaches every dwelling across the generations.
THE ROOT
חֻקַּת
ḥuqqat
GROWS FROM
חקק
ḥ-q-q
To cut in, inscribe, or engrave; by extension, to prescribe.
“statute for the ages” in this verse is ḥuqqat. The word for “statute” is related to חָקַק (ḥaqaq), to inscribe or engrave: the command is pictured as a fixed mark in communal life. Its reach through the ages and into every dwelling makes that boundary part of daily life.
ALSO GROWS
ḥoq: A statute, decree, or prescribed boundary.
חֹק
This is the noun behind the verse’s “statute,” naming the boundary that continues across generations.
mechoqeq: A ruler or lawgiver; one who decrees.
מְחֹקֵק
This branch shows the root’s movement from an inscribed rule to the authority that sets it.
מֹשְׁבֹתֵיכֶם
moshvoteikhem
GROWS FROM
ישב
y-sh-b
To sit, settle, or dwell.
“sitting places” in this verse is moshvoteikhem. “Your dwellings” comes from יָשַׁב (yashav), to sit, settle, or dwell. The boundary reaches the places where life is settled and lived, rather than remaining in one designated location.
ALSO GROWS
yashav: To sit, settle, or dwell.
יָשַׁב
The verb makes the scope concrete: the command applies wherever you settle.
moshav: A dwelling, settlement, or seat.
מוֹשָׁב
This noun shares the root of “dwellings,” linking the command to the places people inhabit.
THE PATTERN
The cessation of work follows a creation pattern and extends into household life as a boundary shared by all.
And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had made, and he stopped on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall not do any work, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your livestock, nor your sojourner who is within your gates.He said to them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.THE THREAD
This is a statute for the ages for you. In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you bend low your living souls, and do no work at all, whether one of your own land or a sojourner who sojourns among you.This verse repeats חֻקַּת (ḥuqqat, statute) and עוֹלָם (ʿolam, age), tying the same enduring boundary to the day’s observance. It also explicitly includes the resident stranger, showing that the no-work boundary reaches everyone living among you.
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