What Does Exodus 31:9 Mean?
And the altar of the rising offering, with all its vessels, and the basin and its stand.
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 altar of burnt offering with all his furniture, and the laver and his foot,THE KEY
The offering is an ʿolah, what rises, and the laver has its own firm base: ascent and washing belong to one ordered approach.
THE MEANING
Your encounter with this verse holds two forms of preparation side by side: the altar equipped for the offering and the laver supported by its base. The approach appears as a whole arrangement, with offering and washing each given a place.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The laver is not a basin standing alone: the verse names its base as part of the vessel.
THE ROOT
הָעֹלָה
haʿolah
GROWS FROM
עלה
ʿ-l-h
to go up, rise, or ascend
“rising offering” in this verse is haʿolah. The name keeps ascent inside the offering: an ʿolah is what goes up. English “burnt offering” foregrounds the fire; the root also lets you hear the rising movement bound into the word.
ALSO GROWS
ʿaliyah: ascent, going up
עֲלִיָּה
This everyday branch makes the upward motion audible in the offering’s name.
maʿaleh: an ascent or rising
מַעֲלֶה
It shares the same root and reinforces that the offering is named through movement upward.
כַּנּוֹ
kanno its base
GROWS FROM
כון
k-w-n
to be firm, established, or set in place
The KJV’s “foot” is the laver’s stand or base, linked to the root for being firmly set. Support is included as part of the washing vessel, not left as an incidental detail.
ALSO GROWS
kun: to be firm or established
כּוּן
The root’s sense of stability illuminates the base that holds the laver in place.
mekhonah: a base, stand, or foundation
מְכוֹנָה
This related word carries the same idea of a stable support, making the laver’s base part of its appointed form.
THE PATTERN
Approach to the LORD takes embodied form through distinct, appointed acts of offering and washing.
You shall also make a basin of bronze, and its stand also of bronze, for washing; and you shall set it between the tent of meeting and the altar, and you shall set waters in it.If his drawing near from the herd is a rising offering, he shall bring near a whole male to the opening of the tent of appointed meeting, and he shall bring it near of his own pleasure before the face of the LORD.Let us draw near with a true heart in the fullness of trust, our hearts sprinkled from a burdened shared sight, and our bodies bathed in clean waters.THE THREAD
You shall also make a basin of bronze, and its stand also of bronze, for washing; and you shall set it between the tent of meeting and the altar, and you shall set waters in it.The phrase “his foot” translates the same Hebrew base, כַּנּוֹ (kanno), from the root כון (k-w-n), meaning to be firm or established. Here the companion verse names the base’s material, washing purpose, and place between the tent and the altar, bringing the support hidden in “foot” into view.
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