What Does Leviticus 16:24 Mean in the King James?
And he shall wash his flesh with water in the holy place, and put on his garments, and come forth, and offer his burnt offering, and the burnt offering of the people, and make an atonement for himself, and for the people.
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 act rendered “atonement” grows from the root for covering, and here its reach widens from the priest to the whole people.
THE MEANING
The verse holds cleansing as a passage into service: the washed body is clothed, comes forth, and enters an act of covering. That covering includes both the priest and the people, joining personal and communal restoration in one movement.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that an individual’s cleansing is a private matter: its final act names the people alongside the priest.
THE ROOT
וְכִפֶּר
wə-khipper
GROWS FROM
כפר
k-p-r
cover
The verb translated “make an atonement” carries the root image of covering. Its reach here includes both the priest and the people, so the verse presents covering as extending across the whole community.
ALSO GROWS
kapporet: the cover over the ark, also called the atonement cover
כַּפֹּרֶת
This same root names the cover at the center of the sanctuary’s atonement rites.
kofer: ransom or covering-price
כֹּפֶר
This branch preserves the root’s concrete covering image in a term for a price given on behalf of a life.
עֹלָה
olah
GROWS FROM
עלה
ʿ-l-h
rise, go up
“burnt offering” in this verse is olah. The offering’s Hebrew name carries the sense of rising or going up. The verse repeats it for the priest and for the people, placing both within the same ascending offering.
ALSO GROWS
ʿalah: to rise or go up
עָלָה
This verb is the root of olah and makes the offering’s upward sense audible.
aliyah: ascent or going up
עֲלִיָּה
This noun from the same root echoes the movement carried in the offering’s name.
קָדוֹשׁ
qadosh
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh
set apart
“holy” in this verse is qadosh. The place is described as set apart, giving the washing a defined space within the passage from cleansing to service. The word points to a place marked out for this work, not simply to a general quality of holiness.
ALSO GROWS
qodesh: set-apartness; a sacred thing or space
קֹדֶשׁ
This noun from the same root names the quality that marks the place in the verse.
miqdash: sanctuary, a set-apart place
מִקְדָּשׁ
The sanctuary shares the root and makes the verse’s set-apart place concrete.
THE PATTERN
Washing marks a passage toward cleansed approach and restored nearness.
When they go into the tabernacle of the congregation, they shall wash with water, that they die not; or when they come near to the altar to minister, to burn offering made by fire unto the LORD:Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.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 uses the כפר (k-p-r) root for the verb translated “pitch” and for the noun translated “pitch”: cover the ark with a covering. The same root underlies the priest’s act of atonement here, bringing its concrete covering image into view.
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