What Does Exodus 40:31 Mean?
And Moses and Aaron and his sons washed their hands and their feet from it.
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 Moses and Aaron and his sons washed their hands and their feet thereat:THE KEY
The washing reaches the hands that act and the feet that advance, while Moses’ name, “drawn out”, echoes a life carried through water.
THE MEANING
The verse gives nearness a bodily shape: your hands, what reaches outward, and your feet, what carries you forward, are both part of what washing touches. The body’s contact and movement belong within the cleansing.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Purity concerns only the inward self, while what your hands touch and where your feet go sit outside sacred life.
THE ROOT
וְרָחֲצוּ
verachatsu
GROWS FROM
ר־ח־ץ
To wash or bathe.
“washed” in this verse is verachatsu. This root describes washing as a bodily act. In this verse both hands and feet undergo it, bringing touch and movement into the same cleansing.
ALSO GROWS
verachatsu: And wash; wash yourselves.
וְרַחֲצוּ
Genesis 18:4 uses this root in the invitation to wash feet, joining washing with welcome and bodily care.
verachatshta: And you shall wash.
וְרָחַצְתָּ
In 2 Kings 5:10, washing in the Jordan is paired with becoming clean, linking the act to its result.
מֹשֶׁה
Moshe
GROWS FROM
מ־ש־ה
To draw out, especially from water.
Moses’ name carries the meaning “drawn out,” as Exodus 2:10 explains. Beside the washing at the laver, his name echoes the image of a life brought through water.
ALSO GROWS
mashah: To draw out.
מָשָׁה
Exodus 2:10 uses this verb in the explanation of Moses’ name: “I drew him out of the water.”
Moshe: Moses; understood as “drawn out.”
מֹשֶׁה
The name holds the drawing-out meaning within it, adding a water-born echo to this scene of washing.
THE PATTERN
Readiness for nearness to God is expressed through cleansing that reaches the body and its actions.
For Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet from it.Clean of hands and clear of heart, he who does not lift up his living soul to emptiness, nor swears in deceit.Jesus said to him, The one who has bathed has no need, except to wash the feet, but is wholly clean; and you are clean, though not all of you.THE THREAD
For Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet from it.This verse repeats the same Hebrew washing root and the same pairing of hands and feet. The repetition makes clear that both service and approach are included in the washing.
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