What Does 2 Kings 16:13 Mean?
And he sent up his rising offering and his gift in smoke, and poured his drink offering, and sprinkled the blood of his wholeness offerings upon the altar.
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 he burnt his burnt offering and his meat offering, and poured his drink offering, and sprinkled the blood of his peace offerings, upon the altar.THE KEY
The Hebrew word behind “peace offerings” shares its root with wholeness, making wholeness here something embodied in an offering.
THE MEANING
Wholeness here is material: grain is offered, wine is poured, the burnt offering rises in smoke, and blood from the peace offerings is sprinkled on the altar. These acts gather at one place, giving wholeness a visible form.
THE ROOT
שְׁלָמִים
shelamim
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
To be whole, complete, or sound.
“wholeness offerings” in this verse is shelamim. “Peace offerings” translates shelamim, from the same root as shalom (שָׁלוֹם), meaning wholeness or peace. The root holds completeness inside the offering’s name, while the verse places its blood on the altar.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, peace
שָׁלוֹם
It shares the root of shelamim, revealing that the offering’s name carries the language of wholeness.
shalem: Whole, complete
שָׁלֵם
This form makes the root’s sense of completeness explicit beside the offering named in the verse.
עֹלָה
olah
GROWS FROM
עלה
ʿ-l-h
To go up or ascend; olah is an offering named with the sense of ascent.
“rising offering” in this verse is olah. The Hebrew name carries the movement of rising: what is consumed on the altar is represented as going up. Alongside the word for wholeness, this gives the verse a language of ascent and material offering.
ALSO GROWS
ʿalah: To go up, rise, ascend
עָלָה
This verb supplies the movement carried by the name olah.
aliyah: Ascent, going up
עֲלִיָּה
This noun from the same root makes the upward movement in olah easier to see.
THE PATTERN
The unseen relation to God becomes tangible through what is brought forward 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.If his drawing near is a wholeness offering from the herd, male or female, he brings it near whole before 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
If his drawing near is a wholeness offering from the herd, male or female, he brings it near whole before the LORD.Leviticus names the peace offering with the same Hebrew word family, shelamim, rooted in שלם (sh-l-m), “to be whole or complete.” That shared root lets the altar scene open into the language of wholeness carried inside the offering’s name.
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