What Does 1 Chronicles 21:29 Mean?
For the dwelling of the LORD, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of the rising offering, were at that time in the high place at Gibeon.
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
For the tabernacle of the LORD, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of the burnt offering, were at that season in the high place at Gibeon.THE KEY
The tabernacle settles, the offering rises, and even its maker, Moses, carries a name shaped by being drawn out.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s dwelling and the altar stand at Gibeon for a season: the dwelling settles, the offering rises, and Moses’ name carries the sense of being drawn out. The verse gives the reader a present image of sacred presence with a particular place and shape, even when that place belongs to one season.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The sacred is absent until it has a finished, permanent home.
THE ROOT
מִשְׁכָּן
mishkan
GROWS FROM
שכן
sh-k-n
to dwell, settle, or remain
The tabernacle is named as a place where presence settles, and its root also forms the word for a neighbor, one who dwells nearby. Its name holds nearness inside the structure: this is a dwelling, not only a tent.
ALSO GROWS
mishkan: dwelling, tabernacle
מִשְׁכָּן
This is the verse’s word, naming the structure through the act of dwelling.
shakhen: neighbor, inhabitant
שָׁכֵן
Both words grow from dwelling, linking the sanctuary’s name with nearness and settled presence.
עֹלָה
olah
GROWS FROM
עלה
ʿ-l-h
to go up, rise, or ascend
“rising offering” in this verse is olah. Olah names the offering through the movement of going up. Beside the dwelling, its altar gives the verse a paired image: presence settled, offering ascending.
ALSO GROWS
ʿalah: to go up, rise, ascend
עָלָה
This verb is the root movement carried in the offering’s name.
ʿaliyah: ascent, going up
עֲלִיָּה
This related noun makes the offering’s upward movement visible in the same word-family.
מֹשֶׁה
Mosheh
GROWS FROM
משה
m-sh-h
to draw out
Moses’ name carries the act of drawing out, as the naming of him recalls being drawn from the water. The verse names the maker of the wilderness dwelling through a name already shaped by emergence.
ALSO GROWS
mashah: to draw out
מָשָׁה
This is the verb invoked to explain Moses’ name.
meshitihu: I drew him out
מְשִׁיתִהוּ
This form appears in the naming explanation in Exodus 2:10, connecting Moses’ name with the act of drawing out.
THE PATTERN
Divine presence becomes encounterable through a dwelling that occupies a particular place and can take different forms.
And the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the weight of the LORD filled the dwelling.I have surely built you a house raised high, a place set firm for your settling for the ages.And the word became flesh and pitched a tent among us, and we beheld his weight, the weight as of the only-born from the Father, full of favor and truth.THE THREAD
And the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the weight of the LORD filled the dwelling.Exodus 40:34 uses מִשְׁכָּן (mishkan, dwelling or tabernacle), from שָׁכַן (shakan, dwell or settle), the same word-family behind this verse’s “tabernacle.” Exodus shows the dwelling filled with the LORD’s presence; 1 Chronicles locates that dwelling at Gibeon for its season.
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