What Does 1 Samuel 14:35 Mean?
And Saul built an altar to the LORD. It was the first altar that he built to the LORD.
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 Saul built an altar unto the LORD: the same was the first altar that he built unto the LORD.THE KEY
An altar’s Hebrew name already carries the sacrifice: Saul’s first act of building is oriented toward what will be given over.
THE MEANING
This verse meets you at the beginning of visible devotion: an altar is built unto the LORD, and the act is marked as Saul’s first. The altar’s Hebrew name carries sacrifice within it, so even before an offering appears in the sentence, the structure points toward something given over.
THE ROOT
מִזְבֵּחַ
mizbeach
GROWS FROM
זבח
To slaughter or sacrifice.
The altar’s Hebrew name grows from the verb for sacrifice: it is named for the act that happens there. Saul’s first built structure is therefore already oriented toward an offering, even though this verse records only its construction.
ALSO GROWS
zavach: To slaughter or sacrifice.
זָבַח
The altar’s name is formed from this action, so its purpose is present in the word.
zevach: A sacrifice or sacrificial offering.
זֶבַח
This branch names what the altar receives, connecting Saul’s building to the offering the verse leaves unstated.
THE PATTERN
The altar makes approach to the LORD tangible through sacrifice.
And Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean beast and of every clean bird, and sent up rising offerings on the altar.You shall make an altar of soil for me, and upon it you shall slaughter your rising offerings and your wholeness offerings, your sheep and your herd. In every place where I cause my name to be remembered, I will come to you, and I will bless you.You also, as living stones, are built up into a house of breath, a set-apart priesthood, to carry up sacrifices of breath, well received by God through Jesus, the Anointed One.THE THREAD
And Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean beast and of every clean bird, and sent up rising offerings on the altar.Genesis and Samuel use the same Hebrew verb בנה (banah, build) and noun מִזְבֵּחַ (mizbeach, altar). Genesis then names the offerings, revealing the sacrifice already carried in the word for the altar Saul builds.
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