What Does 1 Samuel 6:14 Mean?
And the cart came into the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite, and stood there, where there was a great stone. And they split the wood of the cart, and sent up the cows as a rising offering 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 the cart came into the field of Joshua, a Beth-shemite, and stood there, where there was a great stone: and they clave the wood of the cart, and offered the kine a burnt offering unto the LORD.THE KEY
The offering is named for ascent, and the verb that offers the cows carries the same root.
THE MEANING
Here a cart comes to rest, its wood is split, and the kine are offered to the LORD; ascent is already present in the word for offering. The verse holds stopping and rising in one scene: the cart stands, yet the offering goes up.
THE ROOT
עֹלָה
ʿolah
GROWS FROM
עלה
עָלָה (ʿalah): to go up, ascend.
“sent up” in this verse is ʿolah. עֹלָה (ʿolah), rendered “burnt offering,” is an offering of ascent. The verse also says הֶעֱלוּ (heʿelu, “they brought up” or “offered”): the action and the offering carry the same root, so English hides ascent in both.
ALSO GROWS
ʿalah: to go up, ascend
עָלָה
This verb makes explicit the motion already held in עֹלָה, the offering named in the verse.
ʿaliyah: ascent, going up
עֲלִיָּה
This noun preserves the same root’s sense of upward movement, revealing the motion inside the offering’s name.
THE PATTERN
What is present is raised toward God as an offering.
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.Then the fire of the LORD fell, and ate the rising offering, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the waters that were in the trench.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.THE THREAD
And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and look, behind him a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. And Abraham went and took the ram, and raised him up as a rising offering in place of his son.Its Hebrew uses וַיַּעֲלֵהוּ (vayyaʿalehu, “he brought him up” or “offered him up”) and לְעֹלָה (leʿolah, “as an ascending offering”), both from עלה (ʿalah, “ascend”). The same verb-and-offering pairing appears here, carrying the motion of ascent inside “burnt offering.”
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