What Does Leviticus 6:27 Mean?
Whatever touches its flesh shall be set apart. And when any of its blood is sprinkled upon a garment, you shall tread clean the garment on which it was sprinkled, in the set-apart place.
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
Whatsoever shall touch the flesh thereof shall be holy: and when there is sprinkled of the blood thereof upon any garment, thou shalt wash that whereon it was sprinkled in the holy place.THE KEY
The same root names both what contact sets apart and the place where the blood-marked garment is washed.
THE MEANING
Set-apartness is concrete here: contact with the flesh changes the touched thing’s status, and blood on a garment is washed within the set-apart place. The verse holds the offering, the marked garment, and the place of washing inside one sacred boundary.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that contact with sacred things leaves the object unchanged is undone: what touches this flesh becomes set apart.
THE ROOT
יִקְדָּשׁ
yiqdāsh
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh
To be set apart or consecrated.
“set apart” in this verse is yiqdāsh. The verse uses the same Q-D-Sh root for the touched thing’s new status and the “holy place” where the blood-marked garment is washed. English repeats “holy,” while the Hebrew root shows one connected field: set-apartness marks both objects and the space where the boundary is kept.
ALSO GROWS
qādôsh: Set apart for a sacred purpose.
קָדוֹשׁ
This is the form used for the holy place, tying its status to the status of what touches the offering.
qōdesh: The state or domain of what is set apart.
קֹדֶשׁ
It shows that “holy” names a condition of belonging to a sacred domain, not merely a quality or feeling.
miqdāsh: A set-apart place.
מִקְדָּשׁ
This related word makes the link between sacred status and sacred space explicit.
THE PATTERN
Set-apartness becomes concrete through divine designation and contact with sacred things.
And God blessed the seventh day and set it apart, for on it he had stopped from all his work which God had created and made.For seven days you cover the altar, and set it apart. It is an altar most set apart. Whatever touches the altar is set apart.For if the blood of bulls and goats, with the ash of a heifer sprinkled on those made common, sets apart to the cleanness of the flesh.THE THREAD
For seven days you cover the altar, and set it apart. It is an altar most set apart. Whatever touches the altar is set apart.The Hebrew root קדש (q-d-sh), meaning “to set apart,” appears in both verses’ language of holiness and sanctifying. Exodus makes the contact principle especially clear: what touches a consecrated altar becomes set apart.
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