What Does Leviticus 24:15 Mean?
And you shall speak to the children of Israel, saying, Whoever curses his God shall carry his falling short.
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 thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Whosoever curseth his God shall bear his sin.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “curseth” also means “make light,” yet the speaker remains the one carrying the missing.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now about contemptuous speech: making God seem weightless does not make the speaker’s own missing disappear. The speaker still bears it, and the line leaves that accountability with the one who speaks.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that contempt is consequence-free, that what the mouth dismisses can no longer weigh on the speaker.
THE ROOT
יְקַלֵּל
yəqallēl
GROWS FROM
קלל
q-l-l
To be light or slight; in an intensive form, to make light of or curse.
“curses” in this verse is yəqallēl. The root lets “curse” carry the sense of treating God as negligible. That creates the verse’s tension: the speaker’s words make God “light,” but the speaker still bears the missing.
ALSO GROWS
qal: Light, slight, or insignificant.
קַל
This sense sits beneath the verse’s verb: contemptuous speech can treat the one addressed as though of little weight.
qillēl: Curse or revile.
קִלֵּל
This is the same root in its cursing sense, revealing the link between cursing and making light of someone.
וְנָשָׂא
wə-nāśāʾ
GROWS FROM
נשא
n-ś-ʾ
To lift, carry, bear, or take away.
“carry” in this verse is wə-nāśāʾ. The verb gives “bear” the image of lifting and carrying a burden. Other uses can describe carrying guilt or taking it away; here, “his” keeps the missing with the speaker.
ALSO GROWS
nasa avon: Bear or carry away guilt.
נָשָׂא עָוֹן
The same verb can describe bearing guilt; in this verse, it is the speaker who carries the missing.
nasa panim: Lift the face; show favor or partiality.
נָשָׂא פָּנִים
The root’s sense of lifting also appears in a relational expression, showing how the physical act extends into human dealings.
חֶטְאוֹ
ḥeṭʾō
GROWS FROM
חטא
ḥ-ṭ-ʾ
To miss or fail; the word family also names the resulting missing or guilt.
“falling short” in this verse is ḥeṭʾō. The verse names what the speaker bears as a missing, not merely as a vague stain. The word family can also name an offering for the missing, but here the missing remains attached to the speaker.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāṭāʾ: Miss or fail.
חָטָא
The verb shows the action beneath the noun: the “sin” being borne is a missing.
ḥaṭṭāʾt: Sin; also an offering for the missing.
חַטָּאת
The same word family can name both the missing and an offering connected to it, while this verse emphasizes what the speaker bears.
THE PATTERN
Treating God as negligible in speech does not dissolve the speaker’s accountability.
Therefore the LORD God of Israel says, I said indeed that your house and the house of your father would walk before me for the ages. But now the LORD says, Far be it from me. For those who give me weight, I will give weight; those who make light of me shall be made light.You shall not lift the name of the LORD your God into emptiness, for the LORD will not clear him who lifts his name into emptiness.Do not be led astray. God is not sneered at. For whatever a person sows, that also he reaps.THE THREAD
Therefore the LORD God of Israel says, I said indeed that your house and the house of your father would walk before me for the ages. But now the LORD says, Far be it from me. For those who give me weight, I will give weight; those who make light of me shall be made light.“Lightly esteemed” uses the same qalal root as “curseth” in Leviticus 24:15, with the sense of treating something as light. “Honour” comes from kabad, meaning to be weighty; together the words make audible the light-and-weight contrast that Leviticus places between cursing and bearing.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us