What Does Leviticus 27:30 Mean?
And all the tenth of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, is the LORD's; it is set apart to the LORD.
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 all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the LORD’s: it is holy unto the LORD.THE KEY
The tenth arrives already carrying the LORD’s claim, marked off as set apart.
THE MEANING
The tenth portion from field seed or tree fruit belongs to the LORD and is set apart to the LORD. The verse meets the reader at the point of receiving a yield: its source and its measure already sit within that belonging.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a portion becomes the LORD’s only when someone chooses to dedicate it dissolves here: the verse calls the tithe the LORD’s and set apart already.
THE ROOT
מַעֲשֵׂר
maʿaser
GROWS FROM
עשר
ten; a tenth part
The word maʿaser carries the count of ten inside it: the tithe is a defined tenth, not an undefined portion. That counted share is named as belonging to the LORD, so its measure itself is part of the verse’s claim.
ALSO GROWS
ʿeser: ten
עֶשֶׂר
The number inside maʿaser shows that the portion has a measured share.
ʿasiri: tenth
עֲשִׂירִי
This ordinal branch makes explicit the fraction named by the tithe.
קֹדֶשׁ
qodesh
GROWS FROM
קדש
set apart
Qodesh names what is set apart. Here that word attaches to the measured produce itself, so holiness marks its belonging rather than merely describing a feeling around it.
ALSO GROWS
qādōsh: set apart
קָדוֹשׁ
This adjective uses the same root to describe what is designated for God.
miqdāsh: sanctuary; set-apart place
מִקְדָּשׁ
The same root names a place set apart, illuminating the tithe as produce marked for the LORD.
זֶרַע
zeraʿ
GROWS FROM
זרע
to sow or scatter
The same root names both sowing and what is sown, then extends to offspring. The verse places the tithe alongside seed and tree-fruit, holding a yield within its growing chain rather than isolating it as a finished object.
ALSO GROWS
zāraʿ: to sow
זָרַע
The verb names the action from which seed and harvest emerge.
zeraʿ: seed; offspring
זֶרַע
The noun connects the field’s seed with the continuation of life.
THE PATTERN
What the ground yields remains within a belonging that precedes the gatherer.
You shall truly give a tenth of all the yield of your seed, what the field brings forth year by year.But who am I, and what is my people, that we should hold the strength to offer so willingly after this sort? For all things come from you, and from your hand have we given to you.For the earth is the Lord's, and what fills it.THE THREAD
A Psalm of David. The earth is the LORD's, and what fills it; the inhabited world, and those who settle in it.Leviticus calls its source הָאָרֶץ (hāʾāreṣ, land or earth), and Psalm 24:1 uses the same Hebrew word for “earth.” The Psalm names the fullness of that same earth as the LORD’s, placing the tithe within a larger belonging that the English shift from “land” to “earth” can obscure.
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