What Does Exodus 40:10 Mean?
You shall anoint the altar of the rising offering and all its vessels with oil, and set the altar apart; and the altar shall be most set apart.
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 thou shalt anoint the altar of the burnt offering, and all his vessels, and sanctify the altar: and it shall be an altar most holy.THE KEY
The altar’s “most holy” status is the result of being marked as set apart for sacred service.
THE MEANING
The verse shows how sacred purpose takes shape: the altar and every vessel are marked as set apart for service. “Most holy” names the intensified status this setting apart establishes.
THE ROOT
קֹדֶשׁ קָדָשִׁים
qōdeš qodāšîm
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh
Set apart; make sacred by marking something for a distinct purpose.
“set apart” in this verse is qōdeš qodāšîm. The Hebrew phrase is literally “holy of holies,” repeating the same root to intensify the setting apart. The altar and its vessels are named by their consecrated status, not by a material quality of their own.
ALSO GROWS
qādôsh: Set apart as sacred.
קָדוֹשׁ
This is the same root that names the altar’s intensified status.
miqdāsh: A sacred place set apart for divine service.
מִקְדָּשׁ
It shows how the root can name a place devoted to a distinct purpose.
וּמָשַׁחְתָּ
ûmāšaḥtā
GROWS FROM
משח
m-š-ḥ
Smear or rub with oil; anoint.
“anoint” in this verse is ûmāšaḥtā. The same root forms mashiach, “anointed one.” The shared root links the altar’s marking for service with the language used for someone appointed to a distinct role.
ALSO GROWS
māšîaḥ: One marked with anointing for a role.
מָשִׁיחַ
It shares the altar’s root of anointing and reveals the root’s sense of designation.
mišḥāh: The act or oil of anointing.
מִשְׁחָה
It names the marking through which the altar is consecrated.
THE PATTERN
What is set apart for a distinct purpose is marked as ready for its service.
And every day you offer a young bull as an offering for falling short, to cover. You cleanse the altar when you have covered it, and you anoint it, to set it apart.And Moses took the anointing oil, and anointed the dwelling and all that was in it, and set them apart.If anyone therefore cleanses himself out of these, he will be a vessel for honor, set apart, good for the master's use, prepared for every good work.THE THREAD
And every day you offer a young bull as an offering for falling short, to cover. You cleanse the altar when you have covered it, and you anoint it, to set it apart.Exodus 29:36 pairs the same roots for anointing (משח, mashach) and sanctifying (קדש, qadash) found here. Their pairing shows the altar’s anointing as the marking through which it is set apart.
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