What Does Ezekiel 40:41 Mean?
Four tables were on this side and four tables on that side, beside the gate. Eight tables, upon which they slaughtered.
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
Four tables were on this side, and four tables on that side, by the side of the gate; eight tables, whereupon they slew their sacrifices.THE KEY
The offering whose name means “what rises” is slain on tables beside the gate, holding ascent and death at the same threshold.
THE MEANING
The verse places eight tables beside the gate, where the offerings are killed. The Hebrew names the burnt offering as what rises, holding slaughter and ascent in the same frame.
THE ROOT
הָעֹלָה
ha-ʿōlāh
GROWS FROM
עלה
ʿ-l-h
Rise, go up, ascend.
“sacrifices” in this verse is ha-ʿōlāh. The Hebrew names the offering as an עֹלָה (ʿōlāh, a burnt offering), literally, what rises. The verse places that ascent-offering at the site of slaughter, joining rising and death in one act.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālāh: To go up, rise, ascend.
עָלָה
The verb shares the offering’s root: the thing slain on these tables is named for its rising.
ʿaliyyah: Ascent, going up.
עֲלִיָּה
This branch makes the upward movement in the offering’s name explicit, even as the verse holds it beside slaughter.
שֻׁלְחָנוֹת
shulchanot
GROWS FROM
שלח
shalach
Send, send forth, release, extend.
“tables” in this verse is shulchanot. שֻׁלְחָן (shulchan, table) belongs to the שלח (shalach, send forth or extend) word family. The table, a place where provision is extended, is here also the place where the offering is slain.
ALSO GROWS
shulchan: Table; a surface where food is set out.
שֻׁלְחָן
The verse sets the word for an extended table beside the act of slaughter, bringing provision and sacrifice into one image.
Shiloach: Sent forth; the name of the waters of Siloam.
שִׁלֹחַ
This branch carries the root’s sense of sending forth; here the related table word names where the offering is set out for slaughter.
יִשְׁחֲטוּ
yishchatu
GROWS FROM
שׁחט
sh-ḥ-ṭ
Slaughter, kill.
“slew” in this verse is yishchatu. The verb names the actual killing performed on the tables. The same root appears in the offering instructions of Leviticus 1:5, where slaughter takes place at the tabernacle door.
ALSO GROWS
shechitah: Slaughter; the act of ritual killing.
שְׁחִיטָה
This noun makes explicit the act the verse assigns to the tables beside the gate.
shochet: One who slaughters.
שׁוֹחֵט
The word names the person who performs the action described here.
THE PATTERN
At the boundary of approach, sacrifice becomes physical: what is offered is joined to slaughter, blood, or substitution.
And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and look, behind him a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. And Abraham went and took the ram, and raised him up as a rising offering in place of his son.And he shall slaughter the bullock before the face of the LORD, and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall bring near the blood, and dash it round about upon the altar that is at the opening of the tent of meeting.So Jesus also, that he might set the people apart through his own blood, suffered outside the gate.THE THREAD
And he shall slaughter the bullock before the face of the LORD, and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall bring near the blood, and dash it round about upon the altar that is at the opening of the tent of meeting.Ezekiel’s “slew” and Leviticus’s “kill” are forms of שׁחט (shachat, slaughter). Leviticus places the altar by the tabernacle door; Ezekiel places eight tables by the temple gate, carrying the same act across both thresholds.
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