What Does Exodus 40:25 Mean?
And he caused the lamps to rise before the LORD, as the LORD had commanded Moses.
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 lighted the lamps before the LORD; as the LORD commanded Moses.THE KEY
What English calls lighting, Hebrew pictures as raising the lamps into the LORD’s presence.
THE MEANING
The lamps are brought up before the LORD; the light has a place in the presence it serves. Illumination and instruction belong together here: what shines is set according to the LORD’s word.
THE ROOT
וַיַּעַל
wayyaʿal
GROWS FROM
עלה
ʿ-l-h
Rise, go up, ascend; in this verb form, cause to rise or bring up.
“caused to rise” in this verse is wayyaʿal. The verb translated “lighted” carries the movement of raising the lamps. The same root describes an offering ascending, so the light is pictured as brought into the LORD’s presence, not merely kindled.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālāh: Rise or go up.
עָלָה
This is the root’s basic movement, heard in the verse as the lamps being brought up.
ʿōlāh: Burnt offering; literally, an ascending offering.
עֹלָה
The same root links the lamps’ rising with an offering brought before the LORD.
מֹשֶׁה
Mōšeh
GROWS FROM
משה
m-sh-h
Draw out, especially from water.
The name’s biblical explanation connects Moses with being drawn out of the water. The one whose name bears that movement receives the instruction that sets the lamps in their appointed place.
ALSO GROWS
māšāh: To draw out.
מָשָׁה
This verb gives the name its image of being brought out from within the waters.
Mōšeh: Moses; the one drawn out, as the verse’s naming explanation presents it.
מֹשֶׁה
His name carries an image of emergence into the scene where the light is raised before the LORD.
THE PATTERN
Light is placed where it can guide or serve the presence before it.
In the tent of meeting, outside the veil that is before the witness, Aaron and his sons shall arrange it from evening to morning before the LORD. It shall be a statute for the ages, for their generations, with the children of Israel.Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path.Nor do people kindle a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it shines for all who are in the house.THE THREAD
And he set the altar of the rising offering at the opening of the dwelling of the tent of meeting, and caused the rising offering and the gift to rise upon it, as the LORD commanded Moses.The Hebrew verb translated “lighted” in verse 25 shares the root עלה (ʿ-l-h), “rise,” with the verb translated “offered” here and with עֹלָה (ʿōlāh), “burnt offering.” The lamps and the offering are both pictured through ascent into the LORD’s presence.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us