What Does Leviticus 8:15 Mean?
And he slaughtered it, and Moses took the blood, and set it upon the horns of the altar all around with his finger, and cleansed the altar of its falling short, and poured the blood at the foundation of the altar, and set it apart, to make a covering upon it.
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 slew it; and Moses took the blood, and put it upon the horns of the altar round about with his finger, and purified the altar, and poured the blood at the bottom of the altar, and sanctified it, to make reconciliation upon it.THE KEY
The same Hebrew root names the altar’s cleansing and the missing it is cleansed from, while reconciliation is expressed as covering.
THE MEANING
The place of sacred encounter is not treated as untouched: blood reaches the altar’s horns and is poured at its base, where the altar is purged, set apart, and covered. What is marked is not thereby beyond cleansing or sacred use.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A place touched by blood is permanently disqualified from sacred use.
THE ROOT
לְכַפֵּר
lekhapper
GROWS FROM
כ־פ־ר
k-p-r
Cover, envelop.
The word rendered “reconciliation” comes from the root meaning “cover.” The verse places that covering upon the altar itself, where the blood has been applied.
ALSO GROWS
kippur: Covering; atonement.
כִּפּוּר
This branch makes the root’s sense of covering audible beneath the ritual language of reconciliation.
kapporet: The cover of the Ark, traditionally called the mercy seat.
כַּפֹּרֶת
The same root connects covering on the altar with the cover associated with the sanctuary’s innermost place.
וַיְחַטֵּא
wayeḥatte
GROWS FROM
ח־ט־א
ḥ-ṭ-ʾ
Miss, go wrong; in the verb form used here, purge or cleanse from missing.
“cleansed the altar of its falling short” in this verse is wayeḥatte. The verb for purifying the altar grows from the same root as the word for missing. Hebrew holds the missing and the cleansing of it under one seed, where English gives them separate words.
ALSO GROWS
ḥet: Missing; a miss.
חֵטְא
This is the noun from the same root, showing the word-family that names what the altar’s cleansing addresses.
ḥatta’t: Offering for the missing.
חַטָּאת
This branch carries the same root into the offering language of the passage’s ritual setting.
וַיְקַדְּשֵׁהוּ
wayeqaḏḏeshehu
GROWS FROM
ק־ד־ש
q-d-sh
Set apart for sacred use.
“set it apart” in this verse is wayeqaḏḏeshehu. The altar is not given an abstract sacred quality; it is set apart for a particular use. The verse places that setting apart after the blood has reached the altar and it has been purged.
ALSO GROWS
qadosh: Set apart.
קָדוֹשׁ
This familiar branch carries the root’s sense of being marked for sacred use.
miqdash: Sanctuary; a set-apart place.
מִקְדָּשׁ
The shared root connects the altar’s being set apart with the place designated for sacred encounter.
THE PATTERN
Cleansing and setting apart happen where blood reaches the sacred place, and covering belongs to that same site.
And every day you offer a young bull as an offering for falling short, to cover. You cleanse the altar when you have covered it, and you anoint it, to set it apart.And nearly all things are cleansed in blood according to the instruction, and without the pouring out of blood, no release comes.Whom God set forth as a covering through trust in his blood, to show his alignment through the passing over of the missed marks that came before, in the holding back of God.THE THREAD
Remove my falling short with hyssop, and I am clean; tread me, and I am whiter than snow.The verb for purifying the altar comes from the same root as the word for missing. Psalm 51 uses that root in “Purge me,” bringing the altar’s cleansing movement into the reader’s own voice.
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