What Does Exodus 20:25 Mean in the King James?
And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The altar is meant to remain unshorn: the Hebrew word for “hewn” shares its root with the cutting that strips wool from a sheep.
THE MEANING
You encounter sacredness here as a boundary around what a hand may impose: the stones stay uncut, and a raised tool profanes them. The altar’s name carries slaughter and sacrifice, holding the offering of life beside the prohibition against cutting its stones.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The idea that human refinement makes an object more fit for the sacred is undone here: raising a tool to shape the altar’s stones makes them profane.
THE ROOT
גָּזִית
gāzît
GROWS FROM
גזז
גָּזַז (gāzaz), to shear, cut off, or hew.
גָּזִית (gāzît, “hewn”) belongs to גזז (gāzaz, “shear or cut”), the root behind sheep-shearing. The raised tool’s action belongs to a word-family for cutting material away, and the altar’s stones are kept whole by forbidding that cut.
ALSO GROWS
gāzaz: To shear or cut off.
גָּזַז
This verb names the removal that turns whole stone into shaped material.
gōzēz: One who shears.
גֹּזֵז
Isaiah uses this root for sheep-shearers, linking the altar’s forbidden cut with the literal cutting of wool.
מִזְבֵּחַ
mizbēaḥ
GROWS FROM
זבח
זָבַח (zāvaḥ), to slaughter for sacrifice.
The altar’s name carries the action of sacrifice within it: it is a place where life is offered. That meaning places the raised tool beside a different kind of force, the altar receives sacrifice, while its stones are not to be cut by human hands.
ALSO GROWS
zevaḥ: Sacrifice; a sacrificial feast.
זֶבַח
This noun makes explicit the offering bound up in the altar’s name.
zōvēaḥ: One who sacrifices.
זֹבֵחַ
This form names the person performing the altar’s central act, keeping the word-family attached to sacrifice.
וַתְּחַלְלֶהָ
vatteḥallelēhā
GROWS FROM
חלל
חָלַל (ḥālal), to profane or make common.
“polluted” in this verse is vatteḥallelēhā. The verb names a change in the stone’s set-apart status. A consonantal neighbor, חָלָל (ḥālāl, “one pierced or slain”), brings an image of puncture close to the lifted implement without making it a separate claim about the verse.
ALSO GROWS
ḥillēl: To profane or desecrate.
חִלֵּל
This form shares the root’s direct sense: the act makes what is set apart common.
ḥālāl: One pierced or slain.
חָלָל
This consonantal neighbor places an image of piercing beside the tool raised over the stone.
THE PATTERN
Sacred dwelling is formed from stones received whole, with their set-apartness not conferred by human cutting.
And there shalt thou build an altar unto the LORD thy God, an altar of stones: thou shalt not lift up any iron tool upon them.As Moses the servant of the LORD commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of whole stones, over which no man hath lift up any iron: and they offered thereon burnt offerings unto the LORD, and sacrificed peace offerings.Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.THE THREAD
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.The Hebrew behind “hewn,” גָּזִית (gāzît, “hewn”), shares the root גזז (gāzaz, “shear or cut”) with Isaiah’s word for “shearers,” גֹּזְזֶיהָ (gōzzehā). Exodus uses that cutting-root for stone while forbidding the tool’s touch; Isaiah shows the same root in the literal act of shearing.
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