What Does Leviticus 9:15 Mean in the King James?
And he brought the people’s offering, and took the goat, which was the sin offering for the people, and slew it, and offered it for sin, as the first.
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 root of “missing” also names the act rendered “offered it for sin,” joining the people’s failure to ritual cleansing while leaving the goat’s death visible.
THE MEANING
The people’s missing is met in a concrete act: the goat is taken, slaughtered, and ritually cleansed, as with the first offering. The verse keeps both the cleansing and its cost in view; the act is neither bloodless nor abstract.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse overturns the idea that this offering is costless: the goat is explicitly slaughtered.
THE ROOT
וַיְחַטְּאֵהוּ
wayeḥaṭṭēhû
GROWS FROM
חטא
ḥṭʾ
At its base, ḥāṭāʾ means to miss or go wrong; in a ritual form, the root can also mean to purge or cleanse.
The phrase translated “offered it for sin” comes from the same root as “missing.” In ritual use, that root can name cleansing, so the Hebrew joins the people’s missing to the act that purges it, without concealing the goat’s slaughter.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāṭāʾ: To miss or go wrong.
חָטָא
This is the root’s basic sense, connecting the people’s “sin” with a missing.
ḥaṭṭāʾt: Missing; also an offering for missing.
חַטָּאת
This is the word for the goat’s “sin offering,” carrying both the missing and the rite addressing it.
ḥiṭṭēʾ: To purge or cleanse in a ritual setting.
חִטֵּא
This verb form shows how the same root can name the act of cleansing associated with the offering.
קָרְבַּן
qorbān
GROWS FROM
קרב
q-r-b
qārab means to draw near or approach.
The word rendered “offering” is qorbān, from the root for drawing near. Beside the root for missing, it places what has gone wrong and the act brought near in the same scene.
ALSO GROWS
qārab: To draw near or approach.
קָרַב
This is the verb beneath qorbān, giving the offering the sense of something brought near.
qārōb: Near or close.
קָרוֹב
This related form of the root makes the language of approach audible in the word for offering.
THE PATTERN
The text joins the people’s missing to a concrete offering brought near, and keeps the cost of that approach visible.
And he shall do with the bullock as he did with the bullock for a sin offering, so shall he do with this: and the priest shall make an atonement for them, and it shall be forgiven them.Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;THE THREAD
And he shall do with the bullock as he did with the bullock for a sin offering, so shall he do with this: and the priest shall make an atonement for them, and it shall be forgiven them.Both verses use חַטָּאת (ḥaṭṭāʾt, missing/offering for missing) for the sin offering. The shared word holds the people’s missing and the rite addressing it within one root-family, a connection English separates.
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