What Does Leviticus 14:4 Mean?
Then the priest shall command that they take for the one being cleansed two living birds that are clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop.
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
Then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop:THE KEY
The same Hebrew root names both the person being cleansed and the clean birds, joining the recipient to the cleanness embodied in the rite.
THE MEANING
When uncleanness feels like the name attached to you, this verse speaks of you as someone being cleansed. The Hebrew uses the same root for that person and for the birds called clean, making cleanness tangible in the living creatures and materials gathered around them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being marked unclean means you can never be clean again.
THE ROOT
לַמִּטַּהֵר
lammittaher tehorot
GROWS FROM
טהר
Be clean or pure; cleanse or purify, depending on the word form.
“the one being cleansed” in this verse is lammittaher tehorot. Hebrew uses the same טהר (tahar, be clean or pure) root for the person being cleansed and the birds called clean. English separates those descriptions, but the shared root binds the person’s cleansing to cleanness already present in the rite.
ALSO GROWS
tahor: Clean, pure.
טָהוֹר
The verse uses the feminine plural טְהֹרוֹת (tehorot, clean) for the birds; it comes from the same root as the person being cleansed.
tiher: To cleanse, purify.
טִהֵר
The verb for cleansing shares its root with both the person undergoing it and the birds described as clean.
tohorah: Cleanness, purity.
טָהֳרָה
This noun names the state toward which the verse’s process of cleansing moves.
THE PATTERN
Cleanness reaches the marked person through a tangible act.
Remove my falling short with hyssop, and I am clean; tread me, and I am whiter than snow.Then I will sprinkle clean waters upon you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your uncleannesses and from all your idols.And Jesus, stirred in his inward parts, stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, "I will. Be clean."THE THREAD
Remove my falling short with hyssop, and I am clean; tread me, and I am whiter than snow.Psalm 51:7 repeats the hyssop and uses טהר (tahar, be clean or pure) in “I shall be clean,” the same root found here for the person being cleansed and the birds called clean. Leviticus gathers cleanness into a rite; the psalm gives that same root a first-person voice.
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