What Does Leviticus 2:7 Mean?

And if your drawing near is a gift cooked in the frying pan, it is made of fine flour with oil.

Leviticus 2:7 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

And if thy oblation be a meat offering baken in the fryingpan, it shall be made of fine flour with oil.

THE KEY

The word translated “oblation” is ⁨קָרְבָּנְךָ⁩ (qorbanekha, “your offering”), from a root meaning “draw near,” so the pan-baked flour and oil give approach a tangible form.

THE MEANING

Here, drawing near takes a tangible form: fine flour is mixed with oil and baked on a pan. Ordinary grain is prepared with richness and heat, then brought near as an offering.

THE ROOT

קָרְבָּנְךָ

qorbanekha

GROWS FROM

קרב

Draw near, approach.

“drawing near” in this verse is qorbanekha. The word translated “oblation” belongs to the same root as the verb “draw near.” The grain and oil are the tangible form this approach takes: something prepared and brought near.

ALSO GROWS

qarav: Draw near, approach.

קָרַב

This verb names the movement carried by the offering: bringing something near.

qarov: Near, close.

קָרוֹב

This related word makes proximity part of the same word family as the offering.

שֶׁמֶן

shemen

GROWS FROM

שמן

Be fat, grow rich; fatness or richness.

The word for oil shares its root with words for fatness and richness. In this offering, the flour is prepared with that richness before it passes through the heat of baking.

ALSO GROWS

shamen: Fat, rich.

שָׁמֵן

This adjective carries the root’s sense of richness into the oil mixed with the flour.

mishmannim: Rich foods, choice portions.

מִשְׁמַנִּים

This branch uses the same root for rich food, echoing the enriched grain in the offering.

THE PATTERN

Drawing near takes tangible form in what is prepared, presented, or embodied.

And when a living soul brings near a gift to the LORD, his drawing near is of fine flour; he pours oil upon it and sets frankincense upon it.

Leviticus 2:1 · SDVFine flour and oil again give the offering a prepared, tangible form.

Let my prayer be set before you as smoke, and the lifting of my palms as the evening offering.

Psalm 141:2 · SDVPrayer and raised hands are expressed through the images of incense and sacrifice.

You also, as living stones, are built up into a house of breath, a set-apart priesthood, to carry up sacrifices of breath, well received by God through Jesus, the Anointed One.

1 Peter 2:5 · SDVThe community itself becomes the embodied form of an offering.

THE THREAD

And when a living soul brings near a gift to the LORD, his drawing near is of fine flour; he pours oil upon it and sets frankincense upon it.

Leviticus 2:1 · SDV

Leviticus 2:1 uses ⁨קָרַב⁩ (qarav, “draw near”) in the verb rendered “offer,” alongside ⁨קָרְבָּן⁩ (qorban, “offering”). The shared root makes the flour and oil in 2:7 the prepared form of bringing near.

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