What Does 2 Chronicles 29:16 Mean?
And the priests went into the innermost room of the house of the LORD for its cleansing, and brought out all the uncleanness they found in the temple of the LORD into the court of the house of the LORD. And the Levites took it, to carry it out outside, to the brook Kidron.
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 priests went into the inner part of the house of the LORD, to cleanse it, and brought out all the uncleanness that they found in the temple of the LORD into the court of the house of the LORD. And the Levites took it, to carry it out abroad into the brook Kidron.THE KEY
Cleansing reaches completion when what defiles the sacred interior is carried beyond its boundary.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now of sacred space as something that can contain what needs cleansing without ceasing to be sacred. What is found within is carried beyond the boundary; cleansing reaches from discovery through to removal.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The presence of uncleanness does not mean sacredness is gone: what is found within the house can be carried out as it is cleansed.
THE ROOT
לְטַהֲרוֹ
lĕṭahărô
GROWS FROM
ט־ה־ר
ṭ-h-r
Be clean or pure; bring into a clean state.
“for its cleansing” in this verse is lĕṭahărô. English “cleanse” can sound like surface washing, but this root holds the state of being clean and the act of bringing something into that state together. Here that movement begins inside the LORD’s house and reaches beyond its courts as what defiles is carried out.
ALSO GROWS
tahor: Clean, pure
טָהוֹר
The adjective names the condition the cleansing in this verse restores.
tahorah: Cleanness, purification
טָהֳרָה
This noun shows that the root names the state of cleanness as well as the act of cleansing.
הַטֻּמְאָה
haṭumʾāh
GROWS FROM
ט־מ־א
ṭ-m-ʾ
Be ritually unclean; render unclean.
“uncleanness” in this verse is haṭumʾāh. The root names both a state of impurity and the act of defiling. The priests find that condition within the temple, and the Levites carry it out, making removal part of the verse’s picture of cleansing.
ALSO GROWS
tame: Unclean, impure
טָמֵא
This form describes the state named as uncleanness in the verse.
timme: To defile, make unclean
טִמֵּא
This verbal form brings out how impurity can affect the space it occupies.
THE PATTERN
Cleansing becomes visible when what defiles a sacred space is exposed and removed beyond its boundary.
Then the priest shall command that they take out the stones in which the stroke is, and they shall throw them into a soiled place outside the city.Then I will sprinkle clean waters upon you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your uncleannesses and from all your idols.And they came to Jerusalem. And Jesus entered the temple and began to throw out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and turned over the tables of the coin-changers and the seats of those who sold doves.THE THREAD
Remove my falling short with hyssop, and I am clean; tread me, and I am whiter than snow.The same root, ט־ה־ר (ṭ-h-r, be clean or pure), appears in “I shall be clean.” Chronicles shows cleansing as removal from a house; Psalm gives that same root a first-person voice, opening the image toward the reader’s own cleansing.
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