What Does 1 Chronicles 9:30 Mean?
And some of the sons of the priests mixed the blend of the spices.
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 some of the sons of the priests made the ointment of the spices.THE KEY
The Hebrew uses the same root for the compounders and the ointment: the finished mixture still carries the trace of its making.
THE MEANING
A sacred fragrance takes shape as distinct spices are brought into one compound by the priests’ sons. The verse keeps both the mixture and the hands that make it in view: the finished ointment holds the trace of its preparation.
THE ROOT
רֹקְחֵי
roqchei
GROWS FROM
רקח
To compound aromatics and prepare perfumed ointment.
“mixed the blend” in this verse is roqchei. The verse places רֹקְחֵי (roqchei, compounders) beside מִרְקַחַת (mirqaḥat, compound or ointment), forms from the same root. English gives us makers and a mixture as separate ideas; Hebrew keeps their shared making audible in both.
ALSO GROWS
roqēaḥ: A maker who compounds aromatic substances.
רֹקֵחַ
Exodus 30:25 uses this word family for the apothecary’s craft, showing the ointment as the result of a practiced act of combining.
mirqaḥat: A mixture, especially a perfumed ointment.
מִרְקַחַת
This is the mixture named in the verse; its name shares the makers’ root, preserving the relation between the compound and the act that formed it.
THE PATTERN
An aromatic mixture carries its character outward through its scent.
And you shall make it a set apart anointing oil, a blend made by the mixer's craft; it shall be a set apart anointing oil.Dead flies make the perfumer's oil stink; so a little folly outweighs wisdom and weight.Then Mary took a pound of ointment of genuine nard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and dried his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the scent of the ointment.THE THREAD
And you shall make it a set apart anointing oil, a blend made by the mixer's craft; it shall be a set apart anointing oil.Exodus 30:25 uses the same ר־ק־ח (r-q-ḥ, compounding aromatics) root for the compound and the apothecary’s craft. The makers and the ointment in this verse are two branches of one word-family: the mixture still bears its making.
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