What Does Leviticus 16:20 Mean in the King James?
And when he hath made an end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat:
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 live goat is brought near only after the holy place, meeting tent, and altar have been covered to completion.
THE MEANING
The place of meeting and the altar are covered to completion; only then does the living goat come forward. The order matters: covering the sacred space and bringing the living bearer near are distinct movements in one passage. Restoration has a prepared place and then a bearer for what is to be carried away.
THE ROOT
כִּפֵּר
kippēr
GROWS FROM
כפר
To cover over or coat.
The English “reconciling” can sound abstract, while כפר keeps the image of covering in view. Here that covering reaches the holy place, the meeting tent, and the altar before the living goat enters; restoration has an ordered, tangible shape.
ALSO GROWS
kappōret: Cover; traditionally rendered “mercy seat.”
כַּפֹּרֶת
The sanctuary’s cover carries the same root image as the act completed over the holy place.
kāphar: To coat or cover with pitch.
כָּפַר
In Genesis 6:14, this root describes coating the ark inside and out, making the covering image concrete.
kōpher: Pitch; also a ransom or covering price.
כֹּפֶר
The same root links a coating that seals with a price that covers a claim.
THE PATTERN
A burden named for many is gathered onto one bearer.
And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness: 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.All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.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
Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.The Hebrew verb behind “pitch it” is כָּפַר (kāphar, to coat or cover), from the same root as “reconciling” here. In Genesis the root coats the ark inside and out; here it names the covering of the place of meeting.
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