What Does 2 Chronicles 30:15 Mean?
Then they slaughtered the passover on the fourteenth day of the second month, and the priests and the Levites were ashamed, and set themselves apart, and brought the rising offerings into the house of 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
Then they killed the passover on the fourteenth day of the second month: and the priests and the Levites were ashamed, and sanctified themselves, and brought in the burnt offerings into the house of the LORD.THE KEY
Shame does not end their movement: they set themselves apart, then bring what rises into the LORD’s house.
THE MEANING
When your unreadiness becomes visible, shame can be present without becoming the end of participation. Setting apart and offering follow in the verse; exposure is not the final condition.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that feeling ashamed automatically disqualifies you from sacred participation.
THE ROOT
וַיִּתְקַדְּשׁוּ
vayitqaddeshu
GROWS FROM
ק־ד־שׁ
q-d-sh
Set apart; dedicate as distinct for a sacred purpose.
The verb’s form means they set themselves apart. Its root also names the set-apart place, so consecration here is a movement into readiness, followed by the bringing of offerings.
ALSO GROWS
qadosh: Set apart, distinct for a sacred purpose.
קָדוֹשׁ
This familiar branch shows the shared root behind the priests’ act of consecration.
miqdash: A sanctuary, a set-apart place.
מִקְדָּשׁ
The sanctuary shares the same root: the priests set themselves apart and bring offerings into the LORD’s house.
נִכְלְמוּ
nikhləmu
GROWS FROM
כ־ל־ם
k-l-m
Be humiliated or suffer reproach.
“were ashamed” in this verse is nikhləmu. This word carries the force of disgrace or humiliation, not merely a private flicker of regret. The verse leaves that exposure visible, then places setting apart immediately after it; shame does not become their lasting name.
ALSO GROWS
kelimmah: Shame or disgrace.
כְּלִמָּה
This noun shows the heavier edge of the root behind “were ashamed.”
hikhlim: To shame or reproach someone.
הִכְלִים
This related verb makes the root’s connection to public reproach visible.
עֹלוֹת
ʿolot
GROWS FROM
ע־ל־ה
ʿ-l-h
Rise or go up.
“rising offerings” in this verse is ʿolot. The Hebrew name of the burnt offering carries the motion of ascent. English foregrounds what happens to the offering; the root also holds its movement upward into the verse.
ALSO GROWS
ʿalah: To rise or ascend.
עָלָה
This verb shares the motion carried in the name of the offering.
ʿaliyah: An ascent or rising.
עֲלִיָּה
This noun makes the upward movement in the offering’s root easier to see.
THE PATTERN
Readiness for sacred participation takes shape through setting apart, honest recognition, or cleansing.
And the LORD said to Moses, Go to the people, and set them apart today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothes.The slaughtered offerings of God are a broken breath; a broken and crushed heart, O God, you do not despise.But let a man test himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup.THE THREAD
But the priests were too few, so that they could not skin all the burnt offerings. So their brothers the Levites strengthened them, until the work was finished, and until the other priests had set themselves apart. For the Levites were straighter in heart than the priests in setting themselves apart.The same root, ק־ד־שׁ (q-d-sh, set apart), describes the priests becoming ready to serve. Their unreadiness is still visible, but setting themselves apart lets the shared work continue.
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