Tafsiran Ulangan 22:9: Rashi, Chizkuni, Ibn Ezra & Rashbam

כלאים [THOU SHALT NOT SOW THY VINEYARD] WITH DIVERSE KINDS OF SEEDS — i.e. wheat and barley together with kernels of grapes with one and the same hand-throw (Berachot 22a; Kiddushin 39a; Chullin 82b).

לא תזרע כרמך כלאים, “do not sow your vineyard with more than one kind of seed;” previously, in Leviticus 19,19 we had a similar law where we were warned not to sow two seeds in one field. [The reason given is that the seeds might mingle and produce a new species that is not fit for human consumption because it is something that runs counter to the way G-d created the earth, where we were always told the word למינו, “according to its species.” Ed.] פן תקדש The use of the verb קדש here is similar to קדש וקדשה “man-prostitute and woman-prostitute” (Compare Deut. 23,18) because they too, are mixing with other people.

The consequence lest it be consecrated is conditional on you must not sow … with diverse seeds. The Spaniard Menaḥem ben Ya‘aqov ibn Saruq has explained in his Textbook that the word consecrated comes from the triliteral root q-d-sh, on account of the seeds’ intermixture with one another.

פן תקדש LEST IT BECOME קדש — Take it as the Targum does: lest it become unclean (unfit for use); to anything for which a man has repugnance to come into contact with, be it on account of its sublimity as, for instance, holy things, or be it on account of some bad quality, as, for instance, something that is forbidden, the term קדוש is appropriate, as, in the latter sense, e.g., (Isaiah 65:5) “Come not near to me for I make thee קדוש".