What Does Leviticus 14:10 Mean?
And on the eighth day he shall take two male lambs without blemish, and one ewe lamb of the first year without blemish, and three tenths of an ephah of fine flour for a gift, mixed with oil, and one log of oil.
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 on the eighth day he shall take two he lambs without blemish, and one ewe lamb of the first year without blemish, and three tenth deals of fine flour for a meat offering, mingled with oil, and one log of oil.THE KEY
Restoration takes a visible, measured form here: the offering must be whole, and its provisions are named.
THE MEANING
The verse gives the person’s return a concrete shape: lambs, flour, and oil are brought in specified amounts. The repeated phrase “without blemish” marks the animals as whole, while the measures make the offering tangible rather than vague.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that restoration is only inward or invisible; here, it also takes material form.
THE ROOT
תְּמִימִם
temimim
GROWS FROM
תמם
To be complete or whole; the adjective describes something intact or sound.
The Hebrew word for an animal “without blemish” shares its root with a word rendered “perfect” elsewhere. English separates physical soundness from personal integrity, while this root holds both within the idea of wholeness.
ALSO GROWS
tamim: Whole, complete, sound; without blemish.
תָּמִים
This is the same adjective family used for the lambs in the verse.
tam: Whole-hearted or blameless; rendered “plain” in Genesis 25:27.
תָּם
It shows the root can describe a person’s character as well as an offering’s condition.
tamam: To be complete, finished, or brought to an end.
תָּמַם
It reveals completeness as the shared idea beneath the offering’s soundness and the personal quality of being whole.
THE PATTERN
Scripture gives offerings for sacred service a tangible form, with wholeness made visible in what is presented.
And this is the thing that you do to them, to set them apart, to serve me as priest. You take one young bull and two whole rams,And whoever brings near a wholeness offering to the LORD to set apart his vow, or a willing offering from the herd or the sheep, it shall be whole to be pleasing; no blemish shall be in it.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.THE THREAD
And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said to him, I am God Almighty; walk before my face, and be whole.The Hebrew word rendered “perfect” here comes from the same root as “without blemish” in Leviticus. The root’s idea of wholeness reaches from an intact offering to a whole way of walking before God.
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