What Does Leviticus 26:3 Mean?
If you walk in my statutes, and guard my commands, and do them;
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
If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them;THE KEY
The verse makes instruction a lived path: you walk it, guard it, and give it form in action.
THE MEANING
This speaks to you as a whole movement: you walk within the instruction, keep it under watch, and let it take shape in action. Keeping becomes a sustained practice that reaches into how you move through the day.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that keeping God’s instruction means only retaining it in thought; here, keeping is joined to walking and doing.
THE ROOT
וּשְׁמַרְתֶּם
ushmartem
GROWS FROM
שׁמר
shamar
Guard, watch over, keep.
“guard” in this verse is ushmartem. The word translated “keep” carries the image of watching over or guarding. Here, what is guarded is also walked and done, so keeping reaches into lived action.
ALSO GROWS
shomer: Guardian, watchman.
שֹׁמֵר
This branch makes the attentiveness inside “keep” visible: the commandments are held in watchful care.
mishmeret: Guard duty, charge, watch.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
The same root can name an entrusted watch, adding the sense of ongoing care to the verse’s call to keep.
תֵּלֵכוּ
telekhu
GROWS FROM
הלך
halakh
Go, walk.
“walk” in this verse is telekhu. This verb can describe bodily movement and a person’s course of conduct. The verse pictures instruction as a way you move through, giving it a place in daily life.
ALSO GROWS
holekh: One walking, one going.
הוֹלֵךְ
This form keeps the image concrete: the person follows a path step by step.
halikhah: Walking, course, conduct.
הֲלִיכָה
This branch carries walking into the broader course of a life, echoing the verse’s picture of instruction as a path.
חֻקֹּתַי
chuqqotai
GROWS FROM
חקק
ḥaqaq
Engrave, inscribe; decree or prescribe.
The word for “statutes” is related to a root associated with engraving and decreeing, language of instruction given a definite shape. Paired with walking, it pictures a path shaped by what is prescribed.
ALSO GROWS
choq: Statute, prescribed decree.
חֹק
This related word shows the concrete decree within the same word family as the statutes you walk in.
mechoqeq: Lawgiver, one who decrees.
מְחֹקֵק
This branch links the prescribed statute with the act of setting it down, illuminating the instruction that shapes the path.
THE PATTERN
Instruction takes shape as a lived path when it guides movement and is carried into action.
You shall walk in all the ways which the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live, and so that it may go well with you, and so that you may lengthen your days in the land you shall take hold of.Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.THE THREAD
Therefore you shall guard the commandments of the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to stand in awe of him.Deuteronomy 8:6 repeats both roots that hold this verse together: שׁמר (shamar, guard or keep) and הלך (halakh, walk or go). Its closing phrase adds awe, revealing guarded instruction and lived movement as parts of one path.
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