What Does Leviticus 26:9 Mean?
For I will turn my face toward you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and raise up my covenant with you.
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
For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you.THE KEY
Before the verse names your growth, it says God turns toward you, and then makes the covenant stand with you.
THE MEANING
You are met by a turning toward you, followed by fruitfulness and increase. The covenant is made to stand with you, placing growth inside a relationship that holds. The verse moves from regard to abundance to lasting belonging.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that you must first prove your fruitfulness to be met: its first movement is God turning toward you.
THE ROOT
וַהֲקִמֹתִי
va-haqimoti
GROWS FROM
קום
קום (qum) means to rise, stand, or be made to stand.
“raise up my covenant” in this verse is va-haqimoti. Here, establishment is more than a signature: the covenant is made to stand with you. The same root forms words for a place and for rising, giving the promise both footing and life that can rise.
ALSO GROWS
maqom: place, location
מָקוֹם
This word comes from the same root: a place is where something stands, giving the covenant’s establishment the sense of settled footing.
tequmah: rising, restoration
תְּקוּמָה
The root also names rising or restoration, showing establishment as life brought into a standing state.
THE PATTERN
Fruitfulness and increase flow from a life held in relationship with its source.
And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Bear fruit and multiply, and fill the earth, and tread it under your foot, and rule over the fish of the sea, and over the winged of the heavens, and over every living thing that creeps upon the earth."And he becomes like a tree planted by the channels of the waters, that gives its fruit in its season; its leaf does not wither; whatever he does, he breaks through.I am the vine, and you are the branches. The one who remains in me, and I in him, this one bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.THE THREAD
And I will make my covenant stand between me and you, and your seed after you in their generations, for a covenant of the ages, to be God to you and to your seed after you.Here too, “establish” is the same root’s make-to-stand verb. Genesis extends the covenant across generations; Leviticus brings that standing promise into direct address: “with you.”
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