What Does Leviticus 23:44 Mean?
And Moses spoke to the children of Israel the appointed meetings of the LORD.
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 Moses declared unto the children of Israel the feasts of the LORD.THE KEY
The feasts are appointments with the LORD: times made shareable because they are spoken aloud.
THE MEANING
Sacred time is appointed, named, and spoken into the community. The verse presents a shared rhythm that the reader can hear and enter together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This unsettles the idea that sacred time is only private or self-made; here, it is appointed by the LORD and made known to a whole people.
THE ROOT
מֹעֲדֵי
moʿădê
GROWS FROM
יעד
To appoint, designate, or set for a meeting.
“appointed meetings” in this verse is moʿădê. The word translated “feasts” carries the sense of appointed times, moments designated for meeting. The verse presents these observances as encounters built into a shared calendar, not merely occasions on which people gather.
ALSO GROWS
yaʿad: To appoint or designate.
יָעַד
This verb shows that the feasts are set times, not simply recurring events.
yiʿud: An appointment or designation.
יִעוּד
This noun echoes the feasts as times appointed for a shared encounter.
וַיְדַבֵּר
vayedabber
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak or utter.
The Hebrew verb means “spoke,” and its root also gives a word for a word, matter, or thing. Moses’ speech makes the appointed rhythm public and tangible, placing it in the people’s common life.
ALSO GROWS
davar: A word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
The branch links spoken words with the matters they bring into shared attention.
dibbur: Speech or utterance.
דִּבּוּר
This branch keeps the verse’s emphasis on the feasts being spoken aloud to the community.
THE PATTERN
What is appointed becomes a shared rhythm when it is spoken into the community.
And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to part the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for appointed times, and for days and years."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.When the day of Pentecost was fully filled, they were all together in one place.THE THREAD
And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to part the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for appointed times, and for days and years."The Hebrew word for “seasons” here is מוֹעֲדִים (moʿadim, appointed times), from the same root behind Leviticus’ “feasts.” This places the feasts within creation’s larger rhythm of appointed time.
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