What Does Leviticus 23:37 Mean?
These are the appointed meetings of the LORD, which you shall call out as set-apart assemblies, to bring near an offering of fire to the LORD, a rising offering and a grain gift, a slaughter, and poured offerings, each word upon its own day.
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
These are the feasts of the LORD, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, to offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD, a burnt offering, and a meat offering, a sacrifice, and drink offerings, every thing upon his day:THE KEY
The feasts are appointed encounters, and the same call-root turns their proclamation into a gathering.
THE MEANING
For you now, the verse presents sacred attention as a rhythm: appointed days are proclaimed as gatherings, and each act of giving belongs to its day. Devotion takes a shared, spoken, and concrete form.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that the sacred is only private and untimed: here it has a spoken announcement, a shared gathering, and an appointed day.
THE ROOT
מוֹעֲדֵי
mōʿădê
GROWS FROM
יעד
appoint, designate, set a time
“appointed meetings” in this verse is mōʿădê. The word carries the sense of appointed times or meetings. The closing phrase “every thing upon his day” echoes that appointment: the gathering and its offerings belong to a defined time.
ALSO GROWS
moʿed: appointed time, meeting
מוֹעֵד
This singular form shows the appointed encounter carried by “feasts.”
yaʿad: appoint, designate
יָעַד
The verb reveals that these times are set apart by appointment.
תִּקְרְאוּ
tiqreʾu
GROWS FROM
קרא
call, summon, proclaim, read aloud
“call out” in this verse is tiqreʾu. The word translated “convocations” comes from this same call-root. English separates the proclamation from the gathering, while Hebrew links the call with the assembly it summons.
ALSO GROWS
miqra: convocation, called gathering
מִקְרָא
This is the word behind “convocations,” linking the public proclamation to the people gathered.
qoreʾ: one who calls or reads
קוֹרֵא
This participle carries the same act of calling that gives the gathering its name.
לְהַקְרִיב
lehaqriv
GROWS FROM
קרב
approach, draw near
“bring near” in this verse is lehaqriv. The verb beneath “offer” also carries the sense of drawing near. The listed offerings are therefore acts of approach, each placed within the appointed gathering and day.
ALSO GROWS
qorbān: a drawing near
קָרְבָּן
This related noun makes the approach within the offering-language visible.
qarōv: near
קָרוֹב
This branch shows the root’s spatial sense of nearness beneath the act of offering.
THE PATTERN
Shared encounter takes shape through appointed gathering and a concrete response in its time.
Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me.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.Therefore I urge you, brothers, through the compassions of God, to set your bodies beside God as a living sacrifice, set apart, well-pleasing to him, which is your true service.THE THREAD
Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, Concerning the appointed meetings of the LORD, which you shall call out as set-apart assemblies. These are my appointed meetings.Here “proclaim” is תִּקְרְאוּ (tiqreʾu, “you call or proclaim”), and “convocations” is מִקְרָא (miqra, “called gathering”), both from קרא (qara, “call, proclaim, read”). That shared root joins the feast’s announcement to the gathering; verse 37 adds the offerings assigned to each day.
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