What Does Leviticus 16:24 Mean?
He washes his flesh with water in the set-apart place, and puts on his garments, and comes out, and offers his rising offering, and the rising offering of the people, and makes a covering for himself and for the people.
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 wash his flesh with water in the holy place, and put on his garments, and come forth, and offer his burnt offering, and the burnt offering of the people, and make an atonement for himself, and for the people.THE KEY
The act rendered “atonement” grows from the root for covering, and here its reach widens from the priest to the whole people.
THE MEANING
The verse holds cleansing as a passage into service: the washed body is clothed, comes forth, and enters an act of covering. That covering includes both the priest and the people, joining personal and communal restoration in one movement.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that an individual’s cleansing is a private matter: its final act names the people alongside the priest.
THE ROOT
וְכִפֶּר
wə-khipper
GROWS FROM
כפר
k-p-r
cover
“makes a covering” in this verse is wə-khipper. The verb translated “make an atonement” carries the root image of covering. Its reach here includes both the priest and the people, so the verse presents covering as extending across the whole community.
ALSO GROWS
kapporet: the cover over the ark, also called the atonement cover
כַּפֹּרֶת
This same root names the cover at the center of the sanctuary’s atonement rites.
kofer: ransom or covering-price
כֹּפֶר
This branch preserves the root’s concrete covering image in a term for a price given on behalf of a life.
עֹלָה
olah
GROWS FROM
עלה
ʿ-l-h
rise, go up
“rising offering” in this verse is olah. The offering’s Hebrew name carries the sense of rising or going up. The verse repeats it for the priest and for the people, placing both within the same ascending offering.
ALSO GROWS
ʿalah: to rise or go up
עָלָה
This verb is the root of olah and makes the offering’s upward sense audible.
aliyah: ascent or going up
עֲלִיָּה
This noun from the same root echoes the movement carried in the offering’s name.
קָדוֹשׁ
qadosh
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh
set apart
“set-apart place” in this verse is qadosh. The place is described as set apart, giving the washing a defined space within the passage from cleansing to service. The word points to a place marked out for this work, not simply to a general quality of holiness.
ALSO GROWS
qodesh: set-apartness; a sacred thing or space
קֹדֶשׁ
This noun from the same root names the quality that marks the place in the verse.
miqdash: sanctuary, a set-apart place
מִקְדָּשׁ
The sanctuary shares the root and makes the verse’s set-apart place concrete.
THE PATTERN
Washing marks a passage toward cleansed approach and restored nearness.
When they enter the tent of meeting, they shall wash with waters, so that they do not die; or when they draw near to the altar to serve, to make smoke rise from the offering of fire to the LORD.Remove my falling short with hyssop, and I am clean; tread me, and I am whiter than snow.Let us draw near with a true heart in the fullness of trust, our hearts sprinkled from a burdened shared sight, and our bodies bathed in clean waters.THE THREAD
Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; make nests in the ark, and cover it within and without with pitch.The Hebrew uses the כפר (k-p-r) root for the verb translated “pitch” and for the noun translated “pitch”: cover the ark with a covering. The same root underlies the priest’s act of atonement here, bringing its concrete covering image into view.
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