What Does Leviticus 4:29 Mean?
And he leans his hand upon the head of the offering for falling short, and slaughters it in the place of the rising offering.
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 the sin offering, and slay the sin offering in the place of the burnt offering.THE KEY
Hebrew names the offering with the same word-family that names the missing and ritual cleansing, holding the problem and its addressing together.
THE MEANING
The verse puts the missing into a visible, costly scene: a hand rests on the offering’s head, and the animal is killed in the designated place. The act by which the missing is addressed has a body and a location.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that the missing is weightless or purely private: here the hand, head, place, and death are all in view.
THE ROOT
חַטָּאת
ḥaṭṭāʾt
GROWS FROM
חטא
To miss, err, or go wrong.
“offering for falling short” in this verse is ḥaṭṭāʾt. In Hebrew, ḥaṭṭāʾt can name both the missing and the offering associated with it; the same consonants also form a verb for cleansing. The phrase “sin offering” carries the missing and ritual purification within one word-family, connections English spreads across separate words.
ALSO GROWS
chata: To miss, err, or sin.
חָטָא
This verb is the root behind the offering’s name, keeping the missing in view.
chatat: The missing; an offering for the missing.
חַטָּאת
One form names the missing, while another names the offering associated with it.
ḥiṭṭēʾ: To cleanse or purge.
חִטֵּא
The same root also describes ritual cleansing, holding missing and purification within one word-family.
סָמַךְ
samakh
GROWS FROM
סמך
To lean upon or support.
“leans his hand” in this verse is samakh. The verb rendered “lay” carries the sense of leaning or supporting. The hand comes to rest upon the offering in a gesture with a shade of contact and reliance beneath the English wording.
ALSO GROWS
samakh: To lean on or support.
סָמַךְ
This is the verb used for placing the hand upon the offering.
samukh: Near or adjacent; supported or joined.
סָמוּךְ
The related word carries the sense of closeness, sharpening the physical nearness in the gesture.
עֹלָה
ʿōlāh
GROWS FROM
עלה
To go up or ascend.
The burnt offering’s Hebrew name carries ascent inside it: an ʿōlāh is what goes up. The offering for the missing is killed in the place associated with the ascending offering, so both rites share a designated location while remaining distinct acts.
ALSO GROWS
ʿalah: To go up or ascend.
עָלָה
This verb is the root of the offering’s name.
ʿōlāh: An ascending offering; burnt offering.
עֹלָה
The word names the offering at whose place the animal is slain.
THE PATTERN
The missing is brought into visible acknowledgment and met through an enacted act of cleansing or release.
And when he is guilty in one of these things, he speaks his falling short into the open, in that thing in which he has missed the mark. And he brings to the LORD, for his falling short in which he has missed the mark, his guilt offering, a female from the flock, a lamb or a kid of the goats, as an offering for it; and the priest makes a covering for him from his falling short.If we speak our shortcomings into the open, he is steady and aligned, to release our shortcomings, and to cleanse us from all crookedness.THE THREAD
And when he is guilty in one of these things, he speaks his falling short into the open, in that thing in which he has missed the mark.The same Hebrew root that names the offering in Leviticus 4:29 appears as “sinned” here. The next verse joins this confession to an offering, tracing the word-family from naming the missing to addressing it.
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