What Does Leviticus 25:7 Mean?
And for your cattle, and for the living creatures that are in your land, all that it brings in shall be food.
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 for thy cattle, and for the beast that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be meat.THE KEY
Even when human hands leave the land uncultivated, its yield still arrives as food for cattle and wild creatures.
THE MEANING
When the land is left unworked, its yield still feeds the cattle and the wild animals. These living creatures are included in its provision; the land’s growth reaches life beyond human use.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that an uncultivated field has no value: its growth still nourishes the creatures living there.
THE ROOT
תְּבוּאָתָהּ
tevu’atah
GROWS FROM
בוא
b-w-ʾ
Come, enter, arrive; תְּבוּאָה names yield or produce, what is brought in.
“what it brings in” in this verse is tevu’atah. The word translated “increase” is תְּבוּאָתָהּ, “its yield,” from בוא, “come” or “enter.” The root gives the yield the shade of what arrives from the land, food available to the creatures named.
ALSO GROWS
bo: Come; enter.
בּוֹא
This verb shares the root behind תְּבוּאָה, linking the yield with what comes in from the land.
mavo: Entrance; approach.
מָבוֹא
This noun names an arrival point, echoing the yield as what comes in from the land.
חַיָּה
ḥayyah
GROWS FROM
חיה
ḥ-y-h
Live; be alive.
“living creatures” in this verse is ḥayyah. The word translated “beast” comes from the root meaning “live.” The verse includes wild life as a direct recipient of the land’s yield, alongside cattle.
ALSO GROWS
ḥai: Living; alive.
חַי
The same root names the animal through life itself.
ḥayyim: Life; living.
חַיִּים
This form carries the same root into the word for life, underscoring that the wild animal is among the living creatures fed by the land.
לֶאֱכֹל
le’ĕkhol
GROWS FROM
אכל
ʾ-k-l
Eat.
The Hebrew phrase means “for eating,” and the same root forms a noun for food. Here KJV’s “meat” means food, tying the land’s yield directly to nourishment.
ALSO GROWS
ʾakhal: Eat.
אָכַל
This verb shares the root in the phrase “for eating.”
ʾokhel: Food; that which is eaten.
אֹכֶל
This noun from the same root names the food the land’s yield provides.
THE PATTERN
The earth’s growth is provision for animal life as well as human need.
And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to every creeping thing upon the earth, in which there is living soul, I have given every green herb for food. And it was so.He makes the grass sprout for the cattle, and the herb for the service of humankind, to bring bread out from the earth.Look at the birds of the air, for they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into storehouses; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they?THE THREAD
And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to every creeping thing upon the earth, in which there is living soul, I have given every green herb for food. And it was so.Both verses use the אכל (ʾ-k-l) root for eating and food: Leviticus says the yield is “for eating,” while Genesis gives green growth “for meat” to living creatures. The shared root connects the land’s yield with a creation pattern in which its growth becomes nourishment for animal life.
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