What Does Leviticus 17:5 Mean in the King James?
To the end that the children of Israel may bring their sacrifices, which they offer in the open field, even that they may bring them unto the LORD, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, unto the priest, and offer them for peace offerings unto 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
Here, slaughter in the open field becomes a shared offering of wholeness as it is brought to the place of encounter.
THE MEANING
What is done in the open field is brought to the LORD at the tabernacle entrance and before the priest, where it is offered as a wholeness offering. The verse keeps the killing visible while giving it an appointed, shared place. Its movement is from scattered action into a common encounter.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that an offering is only a private intention: here the act is material, located, and brought into a shared relation.
THE ROOT
זִבְחֵי שְׁלָמִים
zivḥei shelamim
GROWS FROM
שלם
š-l-m
To be whole, complete, or intact.
The word translated “peace offerings” is shelamim, from the same root family as shalom, wholeness. The verse presents the slaughter as an offering oriented toward wholeness within a shared encounter.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness, well-being.
שָׁלוֹם
This branch shows that the offering’s name carries a sense of wholeness beyond the English word “peace.”
shalem: Whole, complete, intact.
שָׁלֵם
This form makes the root’s sense of being whole explicit, deepening what the shelamim offering names.
זִבְחֵיהֶם
zivḥeihem
GROWS FROM
זבח
z-b-ḥ
To slaughter, especially in making a ritual offering.
“sacrifices / offer” in this verse is zivḥeihem. The Hebrew repeats the root for slaughter where English uses “sacrifices” and “offer.” It keeps the physical violence of the act in view as the slaughter is brought from the field into the sanctuary’s shared order.
ALSO GROWS
zevaḥ: A slaughtered offering or sacrifice.
זֶבַח
This noun names the act that the verse first locates in the field and then brings before the LORD.
mizbēaḥ: Altar.
מִזְבֵּחַ
The altar’s name belongs to the same root family, linking the place of offering to the act of slaughter.
THE PATTERN
An offering is brought into relationship with God and others rather than left as an isolated act.
I will pay my vows unto the LORD now in the presence of all his people,Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.THE THREAD
And if his oblation be a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offer it of the herd; whether it be a male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the LORD.Leviticus 3:1 names the same shelamim offering and says it is brought before the LORD without blemish. That makes the root’s wholeness resonance concrete: the offering arrives intact into the encounter described here.
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