What Does Leviticus 10:4 Mean?
And Moses called Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Uzziel the uncle of Aaron, and said to them, Draw near, lift your brothers from before the set-apart place, out of the camp.
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 called Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Uzziel the uncle of Aaron, and said unto them, Come near, carry your brethren from before the sanctuary out of the camp.THE KEY
Mosheh (מֹשֶׁה, “drawn out”) directs others to draw near, lift the dead, and carry them beyond the camp.
THE MEANING
You stand at a hard boundary: those who come near lift their dead brothers and carry them from before the sanctuary beyond the camp. The set-apart place does not make death vanish; the bodies remain physical, and the separation is enacted by carrying them out.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what is set apart is untouched by death: the dead remain physically present before the sanctuary and are carried beyond the camp.
THE ROOT
שְׂאוּ
se'u
GROWS FROM
נשׂא
nasa
Lift, carry, bear.
“lift” in this verse is se'u. The Hebrew imperative שְׂאוּ (se’u, “carry”) comes from nasa; English can make it sound like simple transport. The same root forms massa (מַשָּׂא, “burden”) and appears in nasa avon (נָשָׂא עָוֹן, “bear crookedness”), joining the physical carrying of bodies to the carrying of weight and crookedness.
ALSO GROWS
massa: Burden, load.
מַשָּׂא
This branch makes the weight carried in the verse explicit.
nasa avon: Bear crookedness; a phrase often rendered “forgive iniquity.”
נָשָׂא עָוֹן
The same verb can describe bearing crookedness, widening “carry” beyond the movement of a body.
קִרְבוּ
qirvu
GROWS FROM
קרב
qarab
Approach, draw near.
“draw near” in this verse is qirvu. Qirvu (“come near”) and qorban (קָרְבָּן, “drawing near”) share the root qarab. English separates spatial approach from the language of drawing near in an offering, while this verse makes nearness concrete: it is where the lifting begins.
ALSO GROWS
qarov: Near.
קָרוֹב
This branch keeps the verse’s command grounded in physical proximity.
qorban: Drawing near; an offering.
קָרְבָּן
The same root links approach to drawing near, giving the command a wider range than mere distance.
הַקֹּדֶשׁ
haqqodesh
GROWS FROM
קדשׁ
q-d-sh
Set apart.
Haqqodesh means “the set-apart place.” The command moves the brothers from before it and beyond the camp, making the boundary of set-apart space visible while death remains present.
ALSO GROWS
qadosh: Set apart.
קָדוֹשׁ
This branch names the quality that marks the sanctuary’s boundary.
miqdash: Set-apart place; sanctuary.
מִקְדָּשׁ
This related word names the sacred space from before which the bodies are carried.
THE PATTERN
Scripture makes bearing a movement: weight is lifted and carried, not made unreal.
And in the wilderness, where you have seen how the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went, until you came to this place.The goat carries upon himself all their crookedness into a cut-off land, and he sends the goat away into the wilderness.Who himself carried our shortcomings in his own body on the tree, that we, dead to shortcomings, might live to alignment; and by his bruises you were healed.THE THREAD
Surely he has borne our sicknesses, and carried our wounds. Yet we reckoned him struck, beaten by God, and bowed low.Isaiah’s “borne” is nasa (נָשָׂא, lift or bear), the same root as “carry” here. Leviticus gives the verb an unmistakably bodily scene; Isaiah uses that same root for griefs and sickness without making their weight vanish.
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