What Does Leviticus 27:34 Mean?
These are the commandments, which the LORD commanded Moses for the children of Israel on Mount Sinai.
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
These are the commandments, which the LORD commanded Moses for the children of Israel in mount Sinai.THE KEY
The Hebrew uses one root for both “commandments” and “commanded,” closing the book by gathering its instruction as a received charge.
THE MEANING
These commandments are gathered under one source, the LORD, and carried through Moses to Israel. The verse speaks now as a frame for received instruction: a word can come through a human voice while remaining attached to its source.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the assumption that Moses is the source of the commandments: the verse distinguishes the one who commands from the one who carries the instruction.
THE ROOT
מִצְוֹת
mitzvot
GROWS FROM
צוה
ts-w-h
to command, charge, or appoint
“commandments / commanded” in this verse is mitzvot. The noun translated “commandments” and the verb translated “commanded” grow from the same root. The closing line holds the instructions and the act of charging them together, presenting the whole as received rather than self-authored.
ALSO GROWS
mitzvah: commandment
מִצְוָה
This singular form shares the root of “commanded,” linking each instruction to the act of charging it.
tzav: command or charge
צַו
This shorter form keeps the root’s sense of a charge given, echoing how the verse names the instructions.
מֹשֶׁה
Mosheh
GROWS FROM
משה
m-sh-h
to draw out, especially from water
Moses’s name is linked in Exodus 2:10 to being drawn out of water; here that name marks the human carrier in the transmission chain. It preserves the image of one drawn out now carrying instruction onward.
ALSO GROWS
māšāh: to draw out
מָשָׁה
This verb gives the name Moses its stated connection with being drawn out of water.
mĕšîtihû: I drew him out
מְשִׁיתִהוּ
This is the form used in Exodus 2:10 when Moses is named, tying the name to the act of drawing out.
THE PATTERN
Instruction is received from its source, carried through a messenger, and placed before a people.
And the LORD said to Moses, Come up to me into the mountain, and be there, and I will give you tablets of stone, and instruction, and commandments which I have written, that you may teach them.Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD your God commanded to teach you, so that you might do them in the land you are crossing into to take hold of it.For I have not spoken from myself, but the Father who sent me has given me a command, what I should say and what I should speak.THE THREAD
Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD your God commanded to teach you, so that you might do them in the land you are crossing into to take hold of it.Here, as in Leviticus 27:34, the same root צוה appears in both “commandments” (mitzvot) and “commanded” (tzivvah). The echo holds the instruction and the act of charging it together, then carries the words toward teaching and practice.
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