What Does Hebrews 10:4 Mean?
For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and of goats could lift away shortcomings.
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 it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.THE KEY
The blood may be offered, yet the missing remains: offering and removal are different actions.
THE MEANING
This verse names a limit that speaks now: an outward offering does not, by itself, remove the places where a person misses the mark. The offered blood and the unremoved missing stand side by side.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that giving something outward is enough, by itself, to erase the reader’s missing.
THE ROOT
ἁμαρτία
hamartia
GROWS FROM
ἁμαρτ-
hamart-
Miss, fail, or go wrong.
“shortcomings” in this verse is hamartia. Hamartia carries the motion of missing, not only a fixed category of guilt. Its word family keeps the miss and the act of missing together, so the verse says the offered blood does not remove the missing itself.
ALSO GROWS
hamartanō: To miss or go wrong.
ἁμαρτάνω
The related verb makes the movement inside “sins” visible: a miss is something that happens, not only a label.
hamartēma: A mistake or wrong act.
ἁμάρτημα
This related noun names an instance of the same missing, keeping the verse’s focus on what remains unremoved.
ἀφαιρεῖν
aphairein
GROWS FROM
αἱρ-
hair-
Take or choose; with ἀπό (apo), “away,” the compound means take away or remove.
“lift away” in this verse is aphairein. The verb ἀφαιρεῖν is built from ἀπό (apo, away) and αἱρέω (haireō, take). The verse uses a direct removal word and says the blood of bulls and goats does not accomplish that removal.
ALSO GROWS
haireō: To take or choose.
αἱρέω
This is the verb base within ἀφαιρεῖν, exposing the taking action inside “take away.”
periaireō: To take off or remove.
περιαιρέω
This same verb family appears in Hebrews 10:11, where repeated sacrifices likewise cannot remove the missing.
THE PATTERN
Repeated offerings do not, by themselves, remove what is missing.
For you do not delight in the slaughtered offering, else I would give it; the rising offering you do not receive.For I delight in faithful love and not slaughter, and the knowledge of God more than the ascending offerings.Every priest stands each day serving and offering the same slain offerings again and again, which can never carry away shortcomings.THE THREAD
Every priest stands each day serving and offering the same slain offerings again and again, which can never carry away shortcomings.The verb περιελεῖν (perielein, to take away) in this verse shares the αἱρ- (hair-) root family with ἀφαιρεῖν (aphairein, to take away) in Hebrews 10:4, and ἁμαρτίας (hamartias, missing) repeats the same word for sins. The next verse makes the limit cumulative: the offerings recur, yet the removal still does not happen.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us