What Does Leviticus 7:27 Mean?
Whatever living soul it be that eats any blood, even that living soul shall be cut off from his people.
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 soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.THE KEY
The Hebrew does not make an abstract “soul” the offender: the whole living being that eats blood is the one cut off.
THE MEANING
Here, “soul” names the living person, not a self detached from the body. The verse sets a severe boundary around eating blood: the person who does it is cut off from the people. It holds that consequence plainly.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that blood can be treated as ordinary food without consequence.
THE ROOT
נֶפֶשׁ
nephesh
GROWS FROM
נ־פ־שׁ
The living self: a person or living being, and by extension appetite or desire.
“living soul” in this verse is nephesh. English “soul” can sound like an inner part detached from the body, but nephesh can name the whole living person. The verse says that this living being, the one who eats, is cut off.
ALSO GROWS
nephesh: A living person or creature.
This is the sense carried by “that soul” in the verse: the whole person faces the stated consequence.
nephesh: Appetite or desire for food.
The same word also reaches into appetite, connecting the living person with the act of eating that the verse names.
וְנִכְרְתָה
wenikhretah from karat
GROWS FROM
כ־ר־ת
To cut, cut off, or sever.
“cut off” in this verse is wenikhretah from karat. The consequence is expressed as a severing from the people. The same verb also appears in the phrase “cut a covenant,” so karat can name either the making of a bond or the cutting away of a person from communal life.
ALSO GROWS
karat: To cut away or sever.
This is the verb behind the verse’s stated consequence: the eater is severed from the people.
karat berit: To establish a covenant, literally expressed as cutting a covenant.
The shared verb makes the verse’s language of separation concrete: it describes a cut through a bond of belonging.
THE PATTERN
Scripture treats blood as life-bearing, so eating blood crosses a boundary around life.
But flesh in its living soul, its blood, you shall not eat.Only hold fast, that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the living soul, and you may not eat the living soul with the flesh.But that we write to them to hold off from the stains of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.THE THREAD
For the living soul of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make a covering for your living souls, for it is the blood that covers the living soul.This verse uses the same word, nephesh, for “life” and “soul,” joining the living being to the life carried in the blood. It makes visible why Leviticus 7:27 treats eating blood as a boundary with a severe consequence.
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