What Does Leviticus 8:15 Mean in the King James?
And he slew it; and Moses took the blood, and put it upon the horns of the altar round about with his finger, and purified the altar, and poured the blood at the bottom of the altar, and sanctified it, to make reconciliation upon it.
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 same Hebrew root names the altar’s cleansing and the missing it is cleansed from, while reconciliation is expressed as covering.
THE MEANING
The place of sacred encounter is not treated as untouched: blood reaches the altar’s horns and is poured at its base, where the altar is purged, set apart, and covered. What is marked is not thereby beyond cleansing or sacred use.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A place touched by blood is permanently disqualified from sacred use.
THE ROOT
לְכַפֵּר
lekhapper
GROWS FROM
כ־פ־ר
k-p-r
Cover, envelop.
The word rendered “reconciliation” comes from the root meaning “cover.” The verse places that covering upon the altar itself, where the blood has been applied.
ALSO GROWS
kippur: Covering; atonement.
כִּפּוּר
This branch makes the root’s sense of covering audible beneath the ritual language of reconciliation.
kapporet: The cover of the Ark, traditionally called the mercy seat.
כַּפֹּרֶת
The same root connects covering on the altar with the cover associated with the sanctuary’s innermost place.
וַיְחַטֵּא
wayeḥatte
GROWS FROM
ח־ט־א
ḥ-ṭ-ʾ
Miss, go wrong; in the verb form used here, purge or cleanse from missing.
“purified” in this verse is wayeḥatte. The verb for purifying the altar grows from the same root as the word for missing. Hebrew holds the missing and the cleansing of it under one seed, where English gives them separate words.
ALSO GROWS
ḥet: Missing; a miss.
חֵטְא
This is the noun from the same root, showing the word-family that names what the altar’s cleansing addresses.
ḥatta’t: Offering for the missing.
חַטָּאת
This branch carries the same root into the offering language of the passage’s ritual setting.
וַיְקַדְּשֵׁהוּ
wayeqaḏḏeshehu
GROWS FROM
ק־ד־ש
q-d-sh
Set apart for sacred use.
“sanctified” in this verse is wayeqaḏḏeshehu. The altar is not given an abstract sacred quality; it is set apart for a particular use. The verse places that setting apart after the blood has reached the altar and it has been purged.
ALSO GROWS
qadosh: Set apart.
קָדוֹשׁ
This familiar branch carries the root’s sense of being marked for sacred use.
miqdash: Sanctuary; a set-apart place.
מִקְדָּשׁ
The shared root connects the altar’s being set apart with the place designated for sacred encounter.
THE PATTERN
Cleansing and setting apart happen where blood reaches the sacred place, and covering belongs to that same site.
And thou shalt offer every day a bullock for a sin offering for atonement: and thou shalt cleanse the altar, when thou hast made an atonement for it, and thou shalt anoint it, to sanctify it.And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;THE THREAD
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.The verb for purifying the altar comes from the same root as the word for missing. Psalm 51 uses that root in “Purge me,” bringing the altar’s cleansing movement into the reader’s own voice.
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