What Does Leviticus 14:5 Mean in the King James?
And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water:
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 water over which the bird is killed is called living water, so death is set above life that is still moving.
THE MEANING
This scene holds two realities together: a bird is killed in clay, above water named as living. The water is fresh and flowing; its life remains in motion beside the killing.
THE ROOT
מַיִם חַיִּים
mayim chayim
GROWS FROM
חיה
To live, be alive, or keep alive.
“running water” in this verse is mayim chayim. The Hebrew phrase means “living waters”; in this rite, it refers to fresh, flowing water. Its word for living shares the root חיה with words for life and being alive, making the water’s motion part of how the verse names life.
ALSO GROWS
chay: Alive; living.
חַי
The same root describes the bird that remains alive in the next verse, linking living water and living creature in this rite.
chayyim: Life; living.
חַיִּים
This plural form makes clear that the root names life itself, not only movement in the water.
chayah: To live; remain alive.
חָיָה
The verb carries the same life-root found in the water’s description.
THE PATTERN
Scripture names life as water in motion, a source that can be found, forsaken, or flow outward.
And Isaac’s servants digged in the valley, and found there a well of springing water.For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.THE THREAD
As for the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water:The same root חיה (chayah, “to live”) describes the running water in verse 5 and the living bird here. The root links the flowing water and the creature that remains alive within the same rite.
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