What Does Leviticus 4:15 Mean in the King James?

And the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands upon the head of the bullock before the LORD: and the bullock shall be killed before the LORD.

Leviticus 4:15 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The verb beneath “lay” means to lean upon or support, making the elders’ touch a bodily picture of communal responsibility before the bull is killed.

THE MEANING

When a community’s failure is brought before the LORD, its elders place their hands on the bull’s head, and the bull is killed in that same presence. Shared responsibility takes a visible, bodily form; its cost cannot remain abstract.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

A failure shared by a community can remain abstract, with no visible bearer or cost.

THE ROOT

וְסָמְכוּ

vesamkhu

GROWS FROM

סמך

s-m-k

To lean upon or support.

“lay their hands” in this verse is vesamkhu. English “lay” can sound like simple placement, but the Hebrew verb carries the sense of leaning onto or supporting. The elders’ contact makes the congregation’s relation to the offering physical and public before its death.

ALSO GROWS

somekh: One who supports or leans upon.

סוֹמֵךְ

This participle makes the root’s supporting action an agent; here, the elders enact it with their hands.

semikhah: Laying on of hands; support or ordination.

סְמִיכָה

This related noun preserves the connection between the hand-laying gesture and the root’s sense of support.

THE PATTERN

Placing hands makes a community’s identification or entrusted responsibility visible in a body.

And thou shalt bring the Levites before the LORD: and the children of Israel shall put their hands upon the Levites:

Numbers 8:10 · KJVThe people’s hands visibly identify the Levites with the community as they are presented before the LORD.

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:

Leviticus 16:21 · KJVAaron’s hands make the community’s confessed wrongdoing visible on the goat before it is sent away.

Whom they set before the apostles: and when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them.

Acts 6:6 · KJVThe assembly’s choice becomes embodied as the apostles place their hands on those entrusted with service.

THE THREAD

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:

Leviticus 16:21 · KJV

Both verses use the Hebrew root ⁨סמך⁩ (s-m-k, lean upon or support) for placing hands on an offering’s head. Here the bull is killed; in Leviticus 16:21, confessed wrongdoing is placed on a live goat and sent away, linking the same gesture to two distinct outcomes: death and release.

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