What Does Leviticus 27:1 Mean?
And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
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 the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,THE KEY
In Hebrew, the word for “spake” shares its root with “matter,” so the LORD’s speech already carries what is about to unfold.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s word meets you at the threshold of a matter not yet fully visible. As with Moses, the one drawn out, the saying comes before the next instruction takes shape.
THE ROOT
וַיְדַבֵּר
vayedabber
GROWS FROM
ד־ב־ר
d-b-r
Speak, declare.
The root of “spake” also forms a Hebrew word for both “word” and “matter.” Speech here is more than a preface: it carries the substance the chapter is about to unfold.
ALSO GROWS
dābār: Word, matter, thing.
דָּבָר
This branch links what is spoken with the matter that takes shape in the verses that follow.
dĕbārîm: Words, matters, things.
דְּבָרִים
The plural keeps the same connection between spoken words and the matters they name.
מֹשֶׁה
Mosheh
GROWS FROM
מ־שׁ־ה
m-sh-h
Draw out.
Moses’s name is linked in its naming story to being drawn out of the water. Here, the one drawn out receives the word that opens the next matter.
ALSO GROWS
māšāh: To draw out, extract.
מָשָׁה
This verb carries the name’s connection to being drawn out of the water.
mĕšîtîhû: I drew him out.
מְשִׁיתִהוּ
This is the form used in the naming story, making the root’s meaning audible in Moses’s name.
THE PATTERN
The divine word carries the shape of what comes next into the open.
By the word of the LORD the heavens are made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but shall do what I delight in, and shall break through in the thing to which I sent it.And the word became flesh and pitched a tent among us, and we beheld his weight, the weight as of the only-born from the Father, full of favor and truth.THE THREAD
By the word of the LORD the heavens are made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.The Hebrew word דָּבָר (dābār, “word” or “matter”) in Psalm 33:6 comes from the same root as “spake” here. That shared root links the LORD’s speech with the substance it brings into form.
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