What Does Leviticus 10:16 Mean?
And Moses searched and searched for the goat of the offering for falling short, and behold, it had been burned, and he was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons of Aaron who were left living, saying,
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 Moses diligently sought the goat of the sin offering, and, behold, it was burnt: and he was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons of Aaron which were left alive, saying,THE KEY
The Hebrew doubles Moses’ search, “searching, he sought”, and what he finds is not merely absent but consumed by fire.
THE MEANING
When something set apart for a purpose is missing, the absence becomes a reckoning rather than a detail. Moses searches for the goat, finds it burned, and directs his anger toward Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron’s sons who remain alive. His accusation hangs at “saying,” with its reason revealed in the next verse.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the assumption that calling something an offering means its purpose has been fulfilled: Moses finds the named offering already burned.
THE ROOT
דָּרֹשׁ דָּרַשׁ
darosh darash
GROWS FROM
דרש
darash
To seek, inquire, or pursue an answer.
“searched and searched” in this verse is darosh darash. The Hebrew repeats the verb in an emphatic construction: “seeking, Moses sought.” His search does not leave the goat’s absence vague; it uncovers what happened and leads directly to a confrontation.
ALSO GROWS
darash: To seek, inquire, or investigate.
דָּרַשׁ
The search in this verse becomes an inquiry into the offering’s condition.
midrash: Inquiry or exposition.
מִדְרָשׁ
This related word names interpretation as meaning pursued through inquiry, echoing Moses’ insistence on finding and accounting for the offering.
חַטָּאת
chatta’t
GROWS FROM
חטא
chata
To miss or fail to reach a mark.
“offering for falling short” in this verse is chatta’t. The Hebrew name for the sin offering carries the root of missing: it is an offering connected to what has gone wrong or fallen short. That connection gives the goat’s name a concrete relation to the missing itself, rather than leaving “sin offering” as an unexplained label.
ALSO GROWS
chata: To miss, fail, or incur fault.
חָטָא
The verb keeps the idea of missing concrete as a failure to reach what is aimed at.
chet: A miss or failure.
חֵטְא
This noun makes the missing visible in the offering’s name; Moses searches for a goat tied to a specific breach.
שֹׂרָף
soraf
GROWS FROM
שרף
saraph
To burn or consume by fire.
“burnt” in this verse is soraf. The Hebrew specifies consumption by fire, not a vague disappearance. The related name for the seraphim carries this same fire-root, placing the goat’s burning within a word-family that names what burns.
ALSO GROWS
saraph: To burn or consume in fire.
שָׂרַף
This is the action that explains the goat’s state when Moses finds it.
seraphim: Fiery ones.
שְׂרָפִים
The related name preserves the same fire-root in a different branch of the word-family.
THE PATTERN
Searching for what is missing makes the absence visible and calls for a response to what has happened.
I wander like a sheep that loses the way; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commands.What man among you, holding a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness and go after the one that has lost its way until he finds it?Or what woman, holding ten coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search with care until she finds it?THE THREAD
Why have you not eaten the offering for falling short in the set-apart place, for it is most set apart, and God has given it to you to carry the crookedness of the assembly, to cover them before the face of the LORD?The same Hebrew word חַטָּאת (chatta’t, offering for the missing) names the goat Moses searches for and the offering he says should have been eaten. The next verse reveals the stakes: this offering is given to bear the congregation’s crookedness, so its being burned interrupts a specific assigned work.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us