What Does Leviticus 2:13 Mean in the King James?
And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.
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 salt itself is brought near with every offering, making covenant tangible in the act of approach.
THE MEANING
Your approach to God is pictured as carrying covenant in its very substance: salt belongs with every offering. The verse names salt both as the covenant’s salt and as something brought near, binding relationship to what is presented.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that covenant is only an invisible promise with no place in what is brought near: here its salt is present with every offering.
THE ROOT
מֶלַח
melaḥ
GROWS FROM
מלח
m-l-ḥ
Salt; as a verb, to salt.
The verse repeats מלח in מֶלַח (melach, salt), תִּמְלָח (timlaḥ, you shall salt), and מֶלַח (melach, salt). The covenant’s salt is not left as an abstraction: it is the substance used in every offering.
ALSO GROWS
timlaḥ: You shall salt
תִּמְלָח
The command repeats the salt-word as an action, joining the substance to what is done with it.
Yam ha-Melaḥ: Salt Sea
יַם הַמֶּלַח
The same salt-word names a sea, keeping melach grounded in a tangible substance as it marks the covenant here.
קָרְבָּן
qorbān
GROWS FROM
קרב
q-r-b
To approach, come near.
The offering is a qorbān, from the root of drawing near. At the end of the verse, תַּקְרִיב (taqriv) says to bring salt near with every offering, placing salt inside the act of approach.
ALSO GROWS
qārōv: Near, close
קָרוֹב
This branch makes the nearness carried by qorbān audible in the word itself.
taqriv: You shall bring near; offer
תַּקְרִיב
The closing command uses this root for bringing salt near with every offering.
THE PATTERN
Salt marks covenant continuity in worship and becomes an image for the quality that sustains shared life.
All the heave offerings of the holy things, which the children of Israel offer unto the LORD, have I given thee, and thy sons and thy daughters with thee, by a statute for ever: it is a covenant of salt for ever before the LORD unto thee and to thy seed with thee.Ought ye not to know that the LORD God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David for ever, even to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt?Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.THE THREAD
And when any will offer a meat offering unto the LORD, his offering shall be of fine flour; and he shall pour oil upon it, and put frankincense thereon:The word for offering here, qorbān, belongs to the root קרב (q-r-b), to approach or come near. Leviticus 2:1 uses that same root in “offer”; this verse extends the approach by saying to bring salt near with every offering.
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