What Does Leviticus 8:17 Mean in the King James?
But the bullock, and his hide, his flesh, and his dung, he burnt with fire without the camp; as the LORD commanded Moses.
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 fire takes the whole bull, hide, flesh, and dung, and the camp’s boundary is part of the command.
THE MEANING
Here the command includes the whole bull: hide, flesh, and dung are burned beyond the camp. The boundary is explicit; every named part is outside it. Complete removal is part of the act itself.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that only the refuse is burned: the hide and flesh go into the fire with the dung.
THE ROOT
מִחוּץ
miḥūts outside
GROWS FROM
חוּץ
ḥūts
outside, exterior
“Without” can sound like a mere location, but the Hebrew names the exterior beyond the camp. Separation is built into the place of burning: the fire is on the other side of the boundary.
ALSO GROWS
ḥūtsōt: outside spaces; streets
חוּצוֹת
The same root names spaces beyond an interior, echoing the location beyond the camp.
ḥīṣōn: outer; external
חִיצוֹן
Its sense of what lies outside makes the camp’s perimeter visible in the phrase “without the camp.”
שָׂרַף
śāraph burn by
GROWS FROM
שרף
s-r-p
burn, consume by fire
“burnt” in this verse is śāraph burn by. The verb applies to hide, flesh, and dung together, including what English might separate as usable material and waste. The whole bull falls under one fire-consuming act.
ALSO GROWS
śĕrēphāh: burning
שְׂרֵפָה
This noun names the same fire-consuming act that takes every part listed in the verse.
śārāph: fiery serpent; seraph
שָׂרָף
This related form carries the root’s fiery sense into another image.
THE PATTERN
A sacrificial body designated for burning is consumed beyond the camp’s boundary.
But the flesh of the bullock, and his skin, and his dung, shalt thou burn with fire without the camp: it is a sin offering.Even the whole bullock shall he carry forth without the camp unto a clean place, where the ashes are poured out, and burn him on the wood with fire: where the ashes are poured out shall he be burnt.For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp.THE THREAD
For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp.In the Septuagint, this verse and Hebrews 13:11 use forms of κατακαίω (katakaíō, consume by fire) for burning outside the camp. The repeated Greek root joins this disposal to the wider sacrificial pattern Hebrews names.
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