What Does Leviticus 3:13 Mean?
He leans his hand upon its head, and slaughters it before the tent of meeting, and Aaron's sons dash its blood upon the altar all around.
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 lay his hand upon the head of it, and kill it before the tabernacle of the congregation: and the sons of Aaron shall sprinkle the blood thereof upon the altar round about.THE KEY
The hand on the animal and blood cast around the altar make this offering a bodily passage through contact, death, and sacred space.
THE MEANING
The verse places the reader before an offering enacted through a body: a hand rests on the animal’s head, the animal is killed before the tent of meeting, and Aaron’s sons cast its blood around the altar. Contact, death, and blood remain visible in the act of approach.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that approach to the sacred is costless or disembodied is undone here: this rite passes through contact with a living animal, its killing, and its blood.
THE ROOT
וְזָרְקוּ
wəzāreqû
GROWS FROM
זרק
zāraq
To throw or cast; in this verse, to sprinkle blood.
“dash” in this verse is wəzāreqû. The verb pictures blood cast outward around the altar; “sprinkle” names the result while the root retains the motion of throwing. The same motion marks an altar in Exodus and a people in the covenant scene.
ALSO GROWS
wayyizrōq: And he cast or sprinkled.
וַיִּזְרֹק
This form appears when Moses casts covenant blood onto the people, applying the same motion to the assembly.
mizrāq: A basin or bowl for blood.
מִזְרָק
This related word names a vessel used in the blood rite, linking the casting motion to the ritual tools.
וְסָמַךְ
wəsāmak
GROWS FROM
סמך
sāmak
To lean upon, support, or rest upon.
“leans his hand” in this verse is wəsāmak. The hand is set upon the animal’s head with weight, not merely gestured toward it. The root’s sense of leaning or support keeps the offerer’s body in contact with the offering before the killing.
ALSO GROWS
səmikhāh: Laying on; support.
סְמִיכָה
This related noun preserves the verse’s physical gesture of placing a hand upon another.
sōmēkh: One who supports or leans upon.
סוֹמֵךְ
This form keeps the root’s sense of one body resting upon or supporting another, echoing the hand set on the animal’s head.
THE PATTERN
Blood is cast onto altars, people, and covenant objects to make ritual relation visible.
You slaughter the ram and take his blood, and dash it all around upon the altar.For when every command had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the instruction, he took the blood of calves and goats with water, crimson wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the scroll itself and all the people.THE THREAD
And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD has cut with you concerning all these words.The same root, זָרַק (zāraq), meaning “to cast or sprinkle,” describes Moses casting blood onto the people and calling it covenant blood. Leviticus places blood around the altar; Exodus places it on the assembly.
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