What Does Leviticus 23:40 Mean?
And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of a splendid tree, and the open palms of date trees, and the boughs of thick-woven trees, and willows of the streambed. And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days.
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 take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days.THE KEY
Joy here is something you can carry: the branches gathered in your hands become part of rejoicing before God.
THE MEANING
The verse makes your rejoicing embodied and spacious: you gather living branches and carry them into God’s presence, where joy holds for seven days. Gladness is joined to the created world, the body, and the time you inhabit.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that joy is only an inward feeling, detached from the body and the world around you.
THE ROOT
וּשְׂמַחְתֶּם
usmachtem
GROWS FROM
שמח
To rejoice, be glad.
“rejoice” in this verse is usmachtem. The verb’s root also names joy and the state of being glad, joining the act with the feeling. Here rejoicing is tied to gathering branches and continues through seven days, giving gladness a visible form and duration.
ALSO GROWS
simchah: A noun for joy or gladness.
שִׂמְחָה
It names the joy that the verb in this verse expresses as an act.
sameach: An adjective describing one who is glad.
שָׂמֵחַ
It shows the same root naming the person’s state as well as the act of rejoicing.
הָדָר
hadar
GROWS FROM
הדר
Splendor, beauty, honor; to adorn or show honor.
“splendid” in this verse is hadar. The word translated “goodly” also carries a sense of splendor and honor. The trees gathered for rejoicing bear a quality of beauty as they enter the scene before God.
ALSO GROWS
hadar: A noun for splendor or majesty; the word also appears as “excellency” in Isaiah 35:2.
הָדָר
It lets the tree’s “goodliness” carry the added shade of splendor into the celebration.
tehader: A verb form from the same root, used for honoring in Leviticus 19:15.
תְּהַדֵּר
It connects the tree’s splendor with honor, giving the gathered branches a quality beyond their usefulness.
THE PATTERN
Joy before God takes visible form through gathered life: shared feasting, song, and presence.
Seven days you shall feast to the LORD your God in the place the LORD will choose, for the LORD your God will bless you in all your yield, and in all the doing of your hands, and you shall surely rejoice.Serve the LORD with gladness; come before his face with a ringing cry.And they, holding fast day by day with one passion in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, took their food with gladness and singleness of heart.THE THREAD
And you shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow within your gates.The same Hebrew root שמח (samach, “rejoice, be glad”) carries the rejoicing in both verses. Deuteronomy names the wide circle of that joy, children, servants, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, showing the feast as shared celebration.
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