What Does Ezra 6:20 Mean?
For the priests and the Levites cleansed themselves together, all of them were clean, and they slaughtered the passover for all the children of the exile, and for their brethren the priests, and for themselves.
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
For the priests and the Levites were purified together, all of them were pure, and killed the passover for all the children of the captivity, and for their brethren the priests, and for themselves.THE KEY
The purified ministers become the passage by which Passover reaches the captive, their fellow priests, and themselves.
THE MEANING
Purification is shared: the priests and Levites become pure together, then the Passover is slaughtered for those under captivity, their fellow priests, and themselves. Deliverance reaches both the captive community and the people serving it in the same act.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that those still under captivity are outside deliverance: the Passover is slaughtered for them too.
THE ROOT
הַפָּסַח
ha-pesaḥ
GROWS FROM
פסח
To pass over, spare.
“Passover” in this verse is ha-pesaḥ. The offering’s name carries the verb “pass over/spare,” binding the rite to movement past danger. Here it is slaughtered “for all,” extending that deliverance to the captive people, their priestly kin, and the priests themselves.
ALSO GROWS
pāsaḥ: To pass over or spare.
פָּסַח
This verb gives the Passover its action: danger passes over, and life is spared.
pesaḥ: Passover; the Passover offering.
פֶּסַח
The noun names the offering that carries the root’s action of sparing into the shared rite.
וַיִּטְהֲרוּ
wayyiṭhărû
GROWS FROM
טהר
To be clean or pure; to cleanse.
“cleansed themselves” in this verse is wayyiṭhărû. The verse places the act of purification beside its resulting state: they are purified, and all are pure. The shared condition immediately serves the whole community through the Passover.
ALSO GROWS
ṭāhēr: To be clean; to cleanse.
טָהֵר
The verb describes the priests and Levites becoming pure together.
ṭāhôr: Clean or pure.
טָהוֹר
The adjective names the state shared by all of them after purification.
ṭāhŏrāh: Purification or cleanness.
טָהֳרָה
This noun form keeps the act and its condition within the same family of words.
THE PATTERN
Passover is shared deliverance: it gathers the whole congregation and is enacted for the people together.
All the assembly of Israel will make it.And Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of the LORD in Jerusalem, to keep the passover to the LORD God of Israel.Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened. For even the Anointed One, our Passover, was slaughtered for us.THE THREAD
And the blood will be a mark for you upon the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will leap over you, and the blow will not be upon you to ruin you when I strike down the land of Egypt.The verb פָּסַח (pāsaḥ, pass over or spare) is the root behind Ezra’s פֶּסַח (pesaḥ, Passover). Exodus gives the root its movement: destructive force passes over the marked house, while Ezra’s offering reaches everyone bearing captivity.
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