What Does Leviticus 22:22 Mean?
Blind, or broken, or maimed, or with a swelling, or with scurvy, or with a scab, you shall not bring these near to the LORD, nor give of them by fire upon the altar to the LORD.
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
Blind, or broken, or maimed, or having a wen, or scurvy, or scabbed, ye shall not offer these unto the LORD, nor make an offering by fire of them upon the altar unto the LORD.THE KEY
The word translated “offer” means “draw near,” so the verse sets a boundary around which bodies may approach the altar.
THE MEANING
The verse draws a blunt boundary at the altar: a blind, broken, or maimed animal, or one with a wen, scurvy, or scabbed skin, cannot be offered by fire to the LORD. Its visible condition determines whether it may be brought near. The text states this exclusion without softening it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that presenting something as an offering is enough: this verse makes its condition part of whether it can be received.
THE ROOT
תַּקְרִיבוּ
taqrivu
GROWS FROM
קרב
Draw near; approach.
“bring near” in this verse is taqrivu. The word translated “offer” comes from the root meaning “draw near.” The verse is therefore also about approach: it names which bodies may be brought near the altar as a fire offering.
ALSO GROWS
qārab: Draw near; approach.
קָרַב
This is the underlying verb behind “offer,” making approach part of the word itself.
qorbān: Offering; a thing brought near.
קָרְבָּן
The word for a sacrificial offering shares this root, framing the gift as a drawing near.
שָׁבוּר
shavur
GROWS FROM
שבר
Break; shatter; fracture.
“Broken” belongs to a root that names breaking and fracture. Here it describes a concrete bodily condition, one of the stated limits on what may be brought near.
ALSO GROWS
shavar: Break; shatter.
שָׁבַר
The verb names the breaking behind the condition described in the verse.
shever: Breaking; fracture; ruin.
שֶׁבֶר
This noun carries the same root into the language of damage and fracture.
THE PATTERN
Across scripture, the condition of what is presented as an offering marks its fitness for the altar.
Your lamb will be whole, a male of its first year. You will take it from the sheep or from the goats.And if it has a blemish, lame or blind, or any evil blemish, you shall not slaughter it to the LORD your God.but with the costly blood of the Anointed One, as of a lamb without blemish and without stain.THE THREAD
The slaughtered offerings of God are a broken breath; a broken and crushed heart, O God, you do not despise.Leviticus’s “broken” and the psalm’s “broken” share שבר (shavar, “to break or fracture”). Leviticus names a broken animal barred from the altar, while the psalm calls a broken spirit a sacrifice God does not despise.
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