What Does 1 Chronicles 29:21 Mean?
And they slaughtered offerings to the LORD, and sent up the rising offerings to the LORD on the morrow after that day, even a thousand bullocks, a thousand rams, and a thousand lambs, with their poured offerings, and sacrifices in abundance for all Israel.
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 they sacrificed sacrifices unto the LORD, and offered burnt offerings unto the LORD, on the morrow after that day, even a thousand bullocks, a thousand rams, and a thousand lambs, with their drink offerings, and sacrifices in abundance for all Israel:THE KEY
The same Hebrew root names both the act of sacrifice and its offerings, making devotion visible in what is given.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you with devotion that has physical substance: killed animals, burnt offerings, and poured drink offerings. The phrase “for all Israel” gathers that abundance into a shared act. Its scale makes devotion visible and communal, not merely inward.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that devotion is only an inward feeling: here it has material substance and a communal reach.
THE ROOT
זָבַח
zāvaḥ
GROWS FROM
זבח
z-b-ḥ
to slaughter; to sacrifice
“slaughtered” in this verse is zāvaḥ. The verb “sacrificed” and the noun “sacrifices” share the same root, so the Hebrew binds the act to what is offered. The repeated seed makes the offering itself the visible form of the action.
ALSO GROWS
zebaḥ: sacrifice; slaughtered offering
זֶבַח
The noun names the offering with the same root as the verse’s verb, joining deed and gift.
mizbēaḥ: altar
מִזְבֵּחַ
The altar extends the same root from the act and offering to the place organized around sacrifice.
עֹלָה
ʿōlāh
GROWS FROM
עלה
ʿ-l-h
to go up; to ascend
“rising offerings” in this verse is ʿōlāh. The Hebrew word translated “burnt offering” comes from the root meaning “to go up.” Alongside זבח, which names slaughter, עלה gives the offering an upward movement: the verse holds both the material offering and what rises.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālāh: to go up; to ascend
עָלָה
This verb supplies the upward movement carried in the name of the burnt offering.
maʿālāh: ascent; step
מַעֲלָה
This noun preserves the same root’s sense of upward movement, widening the image beyond the offering itself.
THE PATTERN
Devotion takes concrete form when what is offered is gathered into a shared act.
And he sent young men of the children of Israel, who made the burnt offerings rise, and slaughtered oxen as wholeness offerings to the LORD.Therefore I urge you, brothers, through the compassions of God, to set your bodies beside God as a living sacrifice, set apart, well-pleasing to him, which is your true service.Through him, then, let us always carry up a sacrifice of praise to God, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name.THE THREAD
Slaughter slaughtered offerings of alignment, and lean your weight upon the LORD.Psalm 4:5 uses זבח for both “offer” and “sacrifices,” binding the action and its gift just as this verse does. Its phrase “sacrifices of righteousness” opens another dimension: the offering’s meaning is shaped by what it embodies, not only by its abundance.
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