What Does Leviticus 10:4 Mean in the King James?
And Moses called Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Uzziel the uncle of Aaron, and said unto them, Come near, carry your brethren from before the sanctuary out of the camp.
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
Mosheh (מֹשֶׁה, “drawn out”) directs others to draw near, lift the dead, and carry them beyond the camp.
THE MEANING
You stand at a hard boundary: those who come near lift their dead brothers and carry them from before the sanctuary beyond the camp. The set-apart place does not make death vanish; the bodies remain physical, and the separation is enacted by carrying them out.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what is set apart is untouched by death: the dead remain physically present before the sanctuary and are carried beyond the camp.
THE ROOT
שְׂאוּ
se'u
GROWS FROM
נשׂא
nasa
Lift, carry, bear.
The Hebrew imperative שְׂאוּ (se’u, “carry”) comes from nasa; English can make it sound like simple transport. The same root forms massa (מַשָּׂא, “burden”) and appears in nasa avon (נָשָׂא עָוֹן, “bear crookedness”), joining the physical carrying of bodies to the carrying of weight and crookedness.
ALSO GROWS
massa: Burden, load.
מַשָּׂא
This branch makes the weight carried in the verse explicit.
nasa avon: Bear crookedness; a phrase often rendered “forgive iniquity.”
נָשָׂא עָוֹן
The same verb can describe bearing crookedness, widening “carry” beyond the movement of a body.
קִרְבוּ
qirvu
GROWS FROM
קרב
qarab
Approach, draw near.
Qirvu (“come near”) and qorban (קָרְבָּן, “drawing near”) share the root qarab. English separates spatial approach from the language of drawing near in an offering, while this verse makes nearness concrete: it is where the lifting begins.
ALSO GROWS
qarov: Near.
קָרוֹב
This branch keeps the verse’s command grounded in physical proximity.
qorban: Drawing near; an offering.
קָרְבָּן
The same root links approach to drawing near, giving the command a wider range than mere distance.
הַקֹּדֶשׁ
haqqodesh
GROWS FROM
קדשׁ
q-d-sh
Set apart.
“sanctuary” in this verse is haqqodesh. Haqqodesh means “the set-apart place.” The command moves the brothers from before it and beyond the camp, making the boundary of set-apart space visible while death remains present.
ALSO GROWS
qadosh: Set apart.
קָדוֹשׁ
This branch names the quality that marks the sanctuary’s boundary.
miqdash: Set-apart place; sanctuary.
מִקְדָּשׁ
This related word names the sacred space from before which the bodies are carried.
THE PATTERN
Scripture makes bearing a movement: weight is lifted and carried, not made unreal.
And in the wilderness, where thou hast seen how that the LORD thy God bare thee, as a man doth bear his son, in all the way that ye went, until ye came into this place.And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.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
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.Isaiah’s “borne” is nasa (נָשָׂא, lift or bear), the same root as “carry” here. Leviticus gives the verb an unmistakably bodily scene; Isaiah uses that same root for griefs and sickness without making their weight vanish.
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