What Does Leviticus 1:6 Mean?
And he shall flay the rising offering, and cut it into its pieces.
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 he shall flay the burnt offering, and cut it into his pieces.THE KEY
The offering called “that which ascends” is first stripped and divided, so its ascent is inseparable from what happens to its body.
THE MEANING
Here, the burnt offering is handled in plain physical terms: its hide comes off, and its body is cut into pieces. The Hebrew name עֹלָה (ʿolah, burnt offering) carries the sense of ascent, while the verse shows that ascent beginning with this disassembly.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that the offering remains a single, untouched whole: the verse explicitly names the removal of its hide and the division of its body.
THE ROOT
וְנִתַּח
wenittach
GROWS FROM
נתח
Cut or divide into pieces.
“cut it into its pieces” in this verse is wenittach. The verb וְנִתַּח (wenittach, cut into pieces) and the noun נְתָחִים (netāḥim, pieces) share the same root. Hebrew keeps the action and its result in one family: the offering becomes pieces through cutting.
ALSO GROWS
netāḥim: Pieces or parts.
נְתָחִים
The noun names the parts produced by the cutting in this verse.
nittuach: Dissection or surgery in modern Hebrew.
נִתּוּחַ
This later formation from the same root still names dividing or cutting into parts.
וְהִפְשִׁיט
wehiphshit
GROWS FROM
פשט
Strip off; in other uses, spread out or raid.
“flay” in this verse is wehiphshit. The verb for flaying belongs to the root פשט (p-sh-ṭ), also used for stripping clothing and, in other settings, spreading out or raiding. Here its stripping sense makes the removal of the animal’s hide explicit before the cutting begins.
ALSO GROWS
pāshaṭ: To strip off or remove clothing.
פָּשַׁט
This biblical use shares the root’s concrete sense of taking a covering away.
pāshūṭ: Simple or plain in later Hebrew.
פָּשׁוּט
This adjective shares the root consonants and carries a sense of what is plain or exposed.
עֹלָה
ʿolah
GROWS FROM
עלה
Go up, rise, ascend.
“rising offering” in this verse is ʿolah. The Hebrew name עֹלָה (ʿolah, burnt offering) comes from the verb עָלָה (ʿālāh, go up). The word holds the offering together with its upward movement, even as this verse names the bodily steps that precede it.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālāh: To go up or ascend.
עָלָה
This is the verb from which the offering’s name is formed.
maʿaleh: An ascent or upward slope.
מַעֲלֶה
This noun retains the root’s movement upward.
THE PATTERN
The language of offering keeps the body at its center, whether the sacrifice is burned or presented alive.
And its inward parts and its legs he shall wash in water, and the priest shall send all of it up in smoke upon the altar, a rising offering, an offering of fire, a fragrance that settles to the LORD.Therefore I urge you, brothers, through the compassions of God, to set your bodies beside God as a living sacrifice, set apart, well-pleasing to him, which is your true service.Therefore, coming into the world, he says, Slain offerings and offering you did not desire, but a body you fitted for me.THE THREAD
And he shall cut it into its pieces, with its head and its fat, and the priest shall arrange them upon the wood that is on the fire, which is upon the altar.The Hebrew repeats נתח (n-t-ḥ), the root for cutting into pieces. This verse shows those pieces being laid in order on the firewood, carrying the physical process named in Leviticus 1:6 forward.
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