What Does Leviticus 6:13 Mean?
The fire shall burn unbroken upon the altar. It shall never go out.
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
The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out.THE KEY
The altar’s fire is not a one-time spark: the verse joins continual burning with a refusal of extinction.
THE MEANING
The fire remains burning upon the altar; its continuity is part of what the verse says. The line holds both an ongoing flame and the certainty that it does not go out.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a sacred beginning is enough on its own: the verse describes a flame that continues, not a moment that has passed.
THE ROOT
תִּכְבֶּה
tikhbeh
GROWS FROM
כ־ב־ה
k-b-h
Go out, be extinguished; in another form, extinguish or quench.
“go out” in this verse is tikhbeh. The same root can describe a flame going out and the act of putting it out. Isaiah uses that root for the smoking flax that is not quenched, extending this verse’s refusal of extinction to a fragile, nearly spent flame.
ALSO GROWS
yekhabbenah: He will quench it
יְכַבֶּנָּה
Isaiah 42:3 uses this form for the smoking flax; it shares the root behind “go out” here.
tikhbeh: It goes out; it is extinguished
תִּכְבֶּה
This is the form in the verse, naming the extinction the altar’s fire does not undergo.
תּוּקַד
tuqad
GROWS FROM
י־ק־ד
y-q-d
Burn, kindle.
The root names the action that keeps the altar’s fire present, not merely the existence of fire. Its related words also name a burning place and burning itself, joining the flame to the place and ongoing process that sustain it.
ALSO GROWS
moqedah: Hearth; place of burning
מוֹקְדָה
This related noun appears in Leviticus 6:9, where the offering burns on the altar through the night.
yeqod: Burning; fire
יְקוֹד
This noun in Isaiah 33:14 names burning as a sustained condition, echoing the verse’s continual flame.
THE PATTERN
Scripture portrays a flame devoted to God as something supplied, preserved, and kept from extinction.
And you shall command the children of Israel, that they take to you clear oil of crushed olives for the light, to cause the lamp to rise continually.A crushed reed he will not break, and a dimming wick he will not snuff out. He will bring out judgment into truth.Do not hang back in eagerness. Burn in breath, serving the Lord.THE THREAD
A crushed reed he will not break, and a dimming wick he will not snuff out. He will bring out judgment into truth.The Hebrew root כבה (kavah, to go out or extinguish) appears in both passages: here, the altar fire does not go out; in Isaiah, the smoking flax is not quenched. The image moves from a flame maintained on the altar to a fragile flame that is not put out.
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