What Does 2 Chronicles 29:27 Mean?
And Hezekiah commanded them to send up the burnt offering upon the altar. And when the burnt offering began, the song of the LORD began also with the trumpets and with the vessels of David king of Israel.
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 Hezekiah commanded to offer the burnt offering upon the altar. And when the burnt offering began, the song of the LORD began also with the trumpets, and with the instruments ordained by David king of Israel.THE KEY
The burnt offering is named for rising, and at the instant it begins to rise, the song begins too.
THE MEANING
The burnt offering begins on the altar, and at that same moment the LORD’s song begins with trumpets and instruments. What is yielded and what is voiced begin together: worship rises in fire and enters the air as music.
THE ROOT
עֹלָה
ʿolah
GROWS FROM
עלה
ʿ-l-h
Rise, go up, ascend.
“send up” in this verse is ʿolah. The offering’s Hebrew name carries the sense of rising. As the burnt offering begins, the song begins alongside it: ascent in fire and praise in sound occupy the same moment.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālāh: To rise or go up.
עָלָה
This verb is the seed behind the offering’s name and brings the image of ascent into the verse.
maʿalah: An ascent, step, or elevation.
מַעֲלָה
This related word keeps the root’s upward movement visible: the burnt offering is an ascent, not merely an object on the altar.
דָּוִד
Dāwīd
GROWS FROM
דוד
d-w-d
Beloved; the related noun can also mean kinsman.
The verse ties the instruments to David, whose name is linked with belovedness. The sound is carried through a name with a personal, relational resonance.
ALSO GROWS
dōd: Beloved; also a kinsman or uncle.
דּוֹד
This related word carries the beloved sense associated with David’s name.
dōdî: My beloved.
דּוֹדִי
This form makes the root’s affectionate sense explicit, adding resonance to the verse’s reference to David.
THE PATTERN
Scripture joins offering and praise as one act, with what is given and what is voiced rising together.
Also in the day of your gladness, and in your appointed feasts, and at the heads of your months, you shall blow with the trumpets over your rising offerings and over the sacrifices of your wholeness offerings, that they may be to you a memorial before your God. I am the LORD your God.And now my head shall be lifted high above my foes all around me; therefore in his tent I will slaughter with shouting; I will sing, I will pluck the strings for the LORD.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
And its inward parts and its legs he shall wash in water, and the priest shall send all of it up in smoke upon the altar, a rising offering, an offering of fire, a fragrance that settles to the LORD.The Hebrew word translated “burnt sacrifice” here is עֹלָה (ʿolah), the same word at the heart of Chronicles’ “burnt offering,” from עָלָה (ʿālāh), “rise, go up.” The shared root opens the image further: the offering is an ascent, and in Chronicles its beginning is joined by song.
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