What Does Leviticus 10:17 Mean in the King James?
Wherefore have ye not eaten the sin offering in the holy place, seeing it is most holy, and God hath given it you to bear the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the LORD?
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
Eating the set-apart offering is how the priests are assigned to carry the congregation’s crookedness and cover it before the LORD.
THE MEANING
The verse holds two movements together: the offering is received in the holy place, and the congregation’s crookedness is carried and covered before the LORD. Communal failure is not treated as weightless or left as an abstraction; someone is given its burden to bear.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that the offering is merely food: eating it is bound to carrying the congregation’s crookedness and covering it before God.
THE ROOT
לָשֵׂאת
laset
GROWS FROM
נשא
nasa
To lift, carry, or take up.
The verb translated “bear” means taking something up as a load. The priests are not merely near the congregation’s crookedness; they are given the offering in order to carry it.
ALSO GROWS
nasa: Lift, carry, take up.
נָשָׂא
This is the verb’s root form and makes clear that bearing is an act of taking up a burden.
massa: A burden or load.
מַשָּׂא
This branch names what is carried, illuminating the congregation’s wrongdoing as a real burden.
nasi: A leader or prince.
נָשִׂיא
This related form carries the sense of one elevated or raised, extending the root’s image of lifting.
חַטָּאת
chatat
GROWS FROM
חטא
chata
To miss, err, or fall short.
“sin offering” in this verse is chatat. The offering’s name comes from the same root as missing or falling short: it is an offering for the missing. English makes the offering and the congregation’s failure sound like separate ideas, while Hebrew ties them together in one word-family.
ALSO GROWS
chata: To miss or incur guilt.
חָטָא
This verb names the failure for which the offering is given.
chet: Missing or offense.
חֵטְא
This noun shows the root’s sense of a miss carried into the language of wrongdoing.
chatat: Offering for the missing; purification offering.
חַטָּאת
The verse names the offering with the very root that names the failure it addresses.
לְכַפֵּר
lekhapper
GROWS FROM
כפר
kaphar
To cover.
The act translated “make atonement” carries the image of covering. The verse joins carrying the congregation’s crookedness with covering it before the LORD.
ALSO GROWS
kippur: Covering; atonement.
כִּפּוּר
This noun preserves the root’s covering image in the language of atonement.
kapporet: The cover of the ark.
כַּפֹּרֶת
The name of the ark’s cover shares this root and makes its covering sense concrete.
THE PATTERN
Receiving what is set apart can place the community’s wrongdoing upon a bearer, where it is carried and covered before God.
The priest that offereth it for sin shall eat it: in the holy place shall it be eaten, in the court of the tabernacle of the congregation.Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.THE THREAD
Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.Isaiah pairs the same verb נָשָׂא (nasa, lift or carry) with חֵטְא (chet, missing): he carries the many’s missing. Leviticus gives the priests the congregation’s crookedness to carry; the shared verb makes that burden-bearing connection visible.
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