What Does Exodus 38:4 Mean?
And he made for the altar a grating of bronze netting, beneath its rim, reaching down to its midst.
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 made for the altar a brasen grate of network under the compass thereof beneath unto the midst of it.THE KEY
The altar’s name grows from the word for sacrifice, and its bronze mesh gives that offering a shaped place to rest.
THE MEANING
The altar includes a bronze lattice beneath its surrounding edge, extending from below to its midpoint. The offering rests within a measured structure, open rather than solid.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
That a sacred offering is only an inward act, unrelated to the material form that holds it.
THE ROOT
מִזְבֵּחַ
mizbēaḥ
GROWS FROM
זבח
z-b-ḥ
To slaughter or sacrifice; the altar’s name comes from the act it receives.
The Hebrew word for altar is rooted in the word for sacrifice: the place is named by what happens there. The bronze mesh is part of that receiving place, supporting the offering within a built form.
ALSO GROWS
zāvaḥ: To slaughter or offer a sacrifice.
זָבַח
This verb names the action from which the altar’s name grows.
zevaḥ: A sacrifice or sacrificial meal.
זֶבַח
This noun shows the same root can name both the act of offering and what is offered.
THE PATTERN
An offering is given shape by the structure that receives and orders it.
And the fire upon the altar shall burn in it. It shall not be put out. And the priest shall kindle wood upon it every morning, and arrange the rising upon it, and he shall burn upon it the fat of the offerings of wholeness.Therefore I urge you, brothers, through the compassions of God, to set your bodies beside God as a living sacrifice, set apart, well-pleasing to him, which is your true service.THE THREAD
Then Jacob slaughtered a sacrifice upon the mountain, and called his brothers to eat bread, and they ate bread, and lodged all night in the mountain.The words “altar” here and “offered sacrifice” there grow from זבח (z-b-ḥ, slaughter or sacrifice). The root links the place to the act it receives.
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