What Does 2 Chronicles 15:11 Mean?
And they slaughtered to the LORD on that day, from the plunder they had brought, seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep.
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 offered unto the LORD the same time, of the spoil which they had brought, seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep.THE KEY
The root ties sacrifice to the altar: what is held as spoil becomes worship through slaughter.
THE MEANING
The verse places abundance and cost side by side: the spoil becomes a sacrifice to the LORD, counted as seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep. Giving here is material, measured in living creatures surrendered. The text leaves both the scale and the cost in view.
THE ROOT
וַיִּזְבְּחוּ
vayyizbeḥu
GROWS FROM
זבח
z-b-ḥ
to slaughter, especially as sacrifice
“slaughtered” in this verse is vayyizbeḥu. The verb comes from זבח (z-b-ḥ), the root of slaughter and sacrifice. The same root forms זֶבַח (zebaḥ), a sacrifice, and מִזְבֵּחַ (mizbēaḥ), an altar, the place is named by the act performed there. The spoil is not merely handed over; the animals are killed as an altar offering.
ALSO GROWS
zebaḥ: sacrifice
זֶבַח
The noun names the offering made through the act described in this verse.
mizbēaḥ: altar
מִזְבֵּחַ
The altar carries the same root, linking the place of offering to the slaughter that takes place there.
THE PATTERN
Sacrifice makes giving visible, whether it is livestock offered at an altar or thanksgiving offered with the lips.
And Solomon slaughtered the wholeness offerings, which he offered to the LORD, twenty-two thousand oxen and one hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the children of Israel dedicated the house of the LORD.Offer to God thanksgiving, and make whole your vows to the Most High.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
Offer to God thanksgiving, and make whole your vows to the Most High.The Hebrew noun זֶבַח (zebaḥ), meaning sacrifice, comes from the same זבח (z-b-ḥ) root as the verb in this verse. Psalm 50 uses that sacrifice word for thanksgiving, opening another form of offering while leaving the oxen and sheep here fully present.
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