What Does Ezekiel 43:24 Mean?
And you shall bring them near before the LORD, and the priests shall cast salt upon them, and they shall send them up as an ascending offering to the LORD.
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 offer them before the LORD, and the priests shall cast salt upon them, and they shall offer them up for a burnt offering unto the LORD.THE KEY
The “burnt offering” is an olah, “what rises”, and salt marks the gift before its ascent.
THE MEANING
As you meet this verse now, what is brought before the LORD is salted, then lifted as a burnt offering. The salt is not incidental: Leviticus calls it “the salt of the covenant.” The gift rises already marked by covenant.
THE ROOT
מֶלַח
melaḥ
GROWS FROM
מלח
m-l-ḥ
Salt; the related verb means to salt or season with salt.
The noun’s root also names the act of salting. Leviticus 2:13 calls this same salt “the salt of the covenant,” so the offering bears covenant language as it rises.
ALSO GROWS
mālaḥ: To salt or season with salt
מָלַח
The priests’ act of casting salt on the offering is the verb form of this root.
memullaḥ: Salted or seasoned
מְמֻלָּח
The root names not only the salt applied but the state it creates in what receives it.
וְהִקְרַבְתָּם
wehiqravtam
GROWS FROM
קרב
q-r-b
To approach, come near, or bring near.
The Hebrew verb translated “offer” means to bring near. Its related noun qorbān names an offering as drawing near, so the action is movement into the LORD’s presence.
ALSO GROWS
qarov: Near
קָרוֹב
The root keeps nearness inside the act that English calls offering.
qorbān: Offering; drawing near
קָרְבָּן
This related word makes explicit that an offering is also an approach.
עֹלָה
ʿōlāh
GROWS FROM
עלה
ʿ-l-h
To go up or ascend.
“send them up” in this verse is ʿōlāh. English foregrounds the burning; the Hebrew name olah comes from the verb “to go up.” The offering’s name holds its trajectory: it is what rises.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālāh: To go up or ascend
עָלָה
This is the verb at the root of the offering’s name.
ʿaliyyāh: Ascent or going up
עֲלִיָּה
This related form keeps the idea of rising audible beneath olah.
THE PATTERN
Salt accompanies offerings to God and names the enduring covenant that holds them.
And every drawing near of your gift you season with salt; you do not cause the salt of the covenant of your God to cease from your gift. On all your drawing near you bring salt near.All the lifted offerings of the set-apart things, which the children of Israel bring near to the LORD, I have given to you, and to your sons and your daughters with you, by an engraved statute for the ages. It is a covenant of salt for the ages before the LORD, to you and to your seed with you.For everyone will be salted with fire, and every sacrifice will be salted with salt.THE THREAD
And every drawing near of your gift you season with salt; you do not cause the salt of the covenant of your God to cease from your gift. On all your drawing near you bring salt near.Leviticus uses the same מֶלַח (melaḥ, salt) and explicitly calls it “the salt of the covenant.” That phrase lets the salt on Ezekiel’s burnt offering carry covenant language into what rises.
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