What Does Leviticus 6:24 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
Hebrew puts “spake” and “word” in one root family: the speech is already becoming the concrete matter that follows.
THE MEANING
You stand at the threshold of exact instruction: the LORD speaks, Moses receives, and the saying is about to name a specific matter. The line holds speech and its concrete content together from the first word.
THE ROOT
וַיְדַבֵּר
waydabbēr
GROWS FROM
דבר
Speak; the related noun can mean a word, matter, or thing.
The verb behind “spake” shares its root with “word” and “matter.” Hebrew keeps the speaking and the word spoken in one family, so this opening is already the first form of the concrete instruction that follows.
ALSO GROWS
dāḇār: Word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
The spoken word and the matter it names belong to one root family; the instruction is not empty sound.
dĕḇārîm: Words or matters.
דְּבָרִים
The plural carries both utterance and subject matter, echoing how this verse introduces words with a specific content to come.
מֹשֶׁה
Mosheh
GROWS FROM
משה
Draw out, as in the name’s water-related wordplay in Exodus 2:10.
Moses’ name carries the image of being drawn out of water. Here the instruction is addressed to someone whose name holds that image of being drawn out.
ALSO GROWS
māšāh: To draw out.
מָשָׁה
This is the verb behind the name’s stated water image.
Mosheh: Moses; the name linked to being drawn out.
מֹשֶׁה
The name keeps the act of being drawn out inside the identity of the one receiving the words.
THE PATTERN
Instruction arrives as speech that is received and given specific words to carry.
And now go, and I will be with your mouth, and I will teach you what you will speak.Then the LORD stretched out his hand and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me, Look, I have set my words in your mouth.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
After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, Do not fear, Abram. I am your shield, and your very great wages.The noun translated “word” there belongs to the same root as “spake” here; the root holds speech and the matter carried by speech together. Genesis uses the same opening shape, then lets the content emerge: “Fear not.”
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