What Does Leviticus 1:15 Mean?
And the priest shall bring it near to the altar, and pinch off its head, and send it up in smoke upon the altar, and its blood shall be squeezed out upon the wall of the altar.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And the priest shall bring it unto the altar, and wring off his head, and burn it on the altar; and the blood thereof shall be wrung out at the side of the altar:THE KEY
The Hebrew word for altar belongs to the root of slaughter and sacrifice, joining the place named in this verse to the act taking place there.
THE MEANING
The offering reaches the altar through a sequence of bodily acts: the bird’s head is wrung off, its blood is drained beside the altar, and it is burned there. The verse keeps the offering’s death and blood in view as part of the rite.
THE ROOT
מִזְבֵּחַ
mizbeach
GROWS FROM
זבח
z-b-ḥ
to slaughter or sacrifice
The Hebrew name for the altar grows from זבח, the root for slaughtering and sacrifice. In this verse, the place’s name and the bird’s treatment belong to the same word-family, tying the altar to the concrete act performed there.
ALSO GROWS
zavach: to slaughter or sacrifice
זָבַח
This verb names the act that the altar’s name carries into the verse.
zevach: a sacrifice or sacrificial offering
זֶבַח
This noun connects the altar to the offering brought there, whose blood is drained and whose body is burned.
THE PATTERN
In sacrifice, the offering’s life is made visible through its presentation at the altar, its blood, and its burning.
And Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean beast and of every clean bird, and sent up rising offerings on the altar.For the living soul of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make a covering for your living souls, for it is the blood that covers the living soul.And nearly all things are cleansed in blood according to the instruction, and without the pouring out of blood, no release comes.THE THREAD
For the living soul of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make a covering for your living souls, for it is the blood that covers the living soul.Both verses use דָּם (dam, blood). Leviticus 17:11 says the flesh’s life is in the blood and that blood is given upon the altar, opening the draining act in 1:15 as the rite’s handling of life.
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