What Does Ezekiel 43:20 Mean?
And you shall take of its blood and put it on its four horns, on the four corners of the girdle, and on the border round about. Thus you shall cleanse it of its falling short and cover 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 thou shalt take of the blood thereof, and put it on the four horns of it, and on the four corners of the settle, and upon the border round about: thus shalt thou cleanse and purge it.THE KEY
The altar’s cleansing reaches every edge, while its Hebrew verbs join the language of missing with the act of covering.
THE MEANING
Here the whole place of approach stands before you: blood reaches the horns, corners, and surrounding border. The verse names this work with verbs rooted in missing and covering, holding both within one act of cleansing.
THE ROOT
וְחִטֵּאתָ
veḥiṭṭēʾtā
GROWS FROM
חטא
ḥṭʾ
To miss, err, or commit an offense.
“cleanse it of its falling short” in this verse is veḥiṭṭēʾtā. The verb translated “cleanse” shares its root with חֵטְא (ḥeṭʾ, “missing or offense”) and חַטָּאת (ḥaṭṭāʾt, “offense; purification offering”), keeping the act of cleansing connected to the missing it addresses. The next verb comes from כפר (kaphar, “cover”), bringing covering into the same act.
ALSO GROWS
ḥeṭʾ: Missing; offense
חֵטְא
This noun names the same miss whose word-family supplies the verse’s verb for cleansing.
ḥaṭṭāʾt: Offense; purification offering
חַטָּאת
The offering’s name keeps the missing and the ritual that addresses it in one word-family.
וְכִפַּרְתָּ
vekhippartā
GROWS FROM
כפר
kaphar
To cover or cover over.
The verb translated “purge” comes from כפר (kaphar, “cover”), so covering is present within the altar’s cleansing. כַּפֹּרֶת (kappōret, “the ark-cover”) carries the same root into a concrete sanctuary object.
ALSO GROWS
kippūr: Atonement; covering
כִּפּוּר
The ritual word for atonement carries the root’s covering sense into the work described here.
kappōret: The cover of the ark; the mercy seat
כַּפֹּרֶת
The sanctuary’s ark-cover makes the root’s idea of covering concrete within the same sacred space.
THE PATTERN
Cleansing reaches a place of approach when blood is carried to its horns, corners, and boundary.
And he slaughtered it, and Moses took the blood, and set it upon the horns of the altar all around with his finger, and cleansed the altar of its falling short, and poured the blood at the foundation of the altar, and set it apart, to make a covering upon it.And nearly all things are cleansed in blood according to the instruction, and without the pouring out of blood, no release comes.THE THREAD
And he touched it to my mouth, and said, Look, this has touched your lips, and your crookedness turns aside, and your falling short is covered.The same two roots converge here: חטא (ḥṭʾ, “missing or offense”) appears in “thy sin,” and כפר (kaphar, “cover”) is behind “purged.” In Ezekiel the blood reaches the altar’s boundaries; here the coal touches the lips, and the missing is covered.
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