What Does Leviticus 23:41 Mean?

And you shall keep it as a festival to the LORD seven days in the year. It shall be a statute for the ages in your generations. You shall keep it in the seventh month.

Leviticus 23:41 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

And ye shall keep it a feast unto the LORD seven days in the year. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations: ye shall celebrate it in the seventh month.

THE KEY

What English renders as “keep a feast” and “celebrate it” is the same Hebrew root, so the feast exists as something enacted, not just observed.

THE MEANING

Celebration has a measured place in your present life: seven days, returning each year in the seventh month. Its reach runs through the ages and your generations, so the sacred rhythm is carried by time and repetition.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

This undoes the idea that celebration is only a passing feeling: here it has a seven-day shape and a yearly return.

THE ROOT

חָגַג

chagag

GROWS FROM

ח־ג־ג

ḥ-g-g

To hold or celebrate a festival.

“keep it as a festival” in this verse is chagag. The verb for keeping a feast and the later verb for celebrating come from the same root. English separates them, while Hebrew presents the feast as an appointed time that is lived through the act of celebration.

ALSO GROWS

chag: Feast or festival.

חַג

The noun names the festival that the verb enacts: the feast is not only an occasion to mark, but a celebration to enter.

chagigah: Festival celebration or festal offering.

חֲגִיגָה

This related form keeps celebration tangible, tied to what is done and shared during the festival.

חֻקַּת

chuqqat

GROWS FROM

ח־ק־ק

ḥ-q-q

To cut in or inscribe; also to prescribe or decree.

“statute for the ages” in this verse is chuqqat. The word for statute carries the image of something inscribed and prescribed. The yearly celebration is given a marked shape that can be carried through generations.

ALSO GROWS

choq: A statute, decree, or prescribed portion.

חֹק

This related noun names an established measure, echoing the feast’s set duration and place in the year.

mechoqeq: A lawgiver or ruler.

מְחֹקֵק

The branch connects an inscribed decree with the authority that establishes it.

THE PATTERN

Appointed feasts turn recurring time into a setting for rejoicing and encounter.

Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me.

Exodus 23:14 · SDVThe year itself is marked by recurring feasts, so celebration returns as an appointed part of time.

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.

Deuteronomy 16:15 · SDVA seven-day feast is paired with rejoicing across the work of one’s hands, making celebration part of ordinary provision.

On the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

John 7:37 · SDVThe feast becomes a setting for a direct invitation to receive living water.

THE THREAD

Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me.

Exodus 23:14 · SDV

Both verses use the root ⁨ח־ג־ג⁩ (ḥ-g-g), the root of holding or celebrating a festival. Exodus names recurring feasts in the year; Leviticus gives this feast its seven-day shape and its place in the seventh month.

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