What Does Jeremiah 6:20 Mean?
Why does frankincense come to me from Sheba, and the sweet reed from a far land? Your ascending offerings are not for my favor, and your slaughters are not sweet to me.
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
To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto me.THE KEY
The verse calls burnt offerings “ascents,” yet rising toward God is not the same as being received.
THE MEANING
The verse addresses you with an exposed gap: what is precious and deliberately brought can still fail to be received. The burnt offerings rise, yet they are not accepted; the sacrifices are present, yet they are not pleasing. Its question, “To what purpose?”, asks what a gift is for when it is not welcomed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A costly, beautiful, or religious offering is not automatically pleasing to God.
THE ROOT
עֹלוֹתֵיכֶם
ʿoloteikhem
GROWS FROM
עלה
עָלָה (ʿālāh): to go up, rise, ascend.
“ascending offerings” in this verse is ʿoloteikhem. Your עֹלוֹתֵיכֶם (ʿoloteikhem, burnt offerings) are named with the word for rising or ascending. English keeps the ritual but hides that upward motion: a gift may ascend while still failing to be received.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālāh: To go up; to rise; to ascend.
עָלָה
This verb is the seed of the offering’s name: the offering is an ascent.
maʿaleh: An ascent; an upward step.
מַעֲלֶה
This related noun makes the movement in the offering’s name visible: it goes upward, but ascent alone does not make it welcome.
THE PATTERN
An outward offering is not automatically welcome merely because it is costly or sacred.
And Samuel said, Does the LORD delight in rising offerings and slaughtered offerings as much as in hearing and responding to the voice of the LORD? Behold, hearing and responding is better than a slaughtered offering; to prick the ear is better than the fat of rams.What is the abundance of your slaughter to me, says the LORD? I am filled with the ascending offerings of rams and with the fat of the fattened beasts. I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of he-goats.And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the living soul, and with all the strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself, is more than all the whole-burned offerings and sacrifices.THE THREAD
And its inward parts and its legs he shall wash in water, and the priest shall send all of it up in smoke upon the altar, a rising offering, an offering of fire, a fragrance that settles to the LORD.Leviticus names the burnt sacrifice עֹלָה (ʿōlāh, an ascending offering) and calls its aroma sweet to the LORD. Jeremiah uses that same offering word while saying these offerings are not accepted, revealing that ascent describes what rises, not whether it is welcomed.
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