What Does Leviticus 8:3 Mean?
And gather all the assembly to the opening of the tent of meeting.
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 gather thou all the congregation together unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.THE KEY
The entire assembly is called to the opening of the meeting tent, where the gathering itself becomes public.
THE MEANING
You meet this call as part of a whole: the congregation comes together at the entrance to the meeting tent. The meeting begins at the threshold, with the gathered community present.
THE ROOT
הַקְהֵל
haqhel
GROWS FROM
קהל
Q-H-L
To assemble or convene.
“gather” in this verse is haqhel. The command הַקְהֵל (haqhel, assemble) and the noun קָהָל (qāhāl, assembly) share the same three-letter root. English separates the action from the people, while Hebrew holds them together: the assembly is what the gathering brings into being.
ALSO GROWS
qāhāl: Assembly or congregation
קָהָל
The people being summoned are named by the same root as the act of gathering them.
hiqhil: Gather or assemble
הִקְהִיל
This related verb form shows the root’s active sense of bringing a group together.
THE PATTERN
Gathering the whole community creates a shared setting for instruction and the disclosure of what God is doing.
And Moses gathered all the assembly of the children of Israel, and said to them, These are the words that the LORD commanded, that you should do them.Assemble the people, the men, the women, and the little ones, and the sojourner within your gates, so that they may hear and respond, and so that they may learn, and be struck with awe of the LORD your God, and guard to do all the words of this instruction;And when they had arrived and gathered the assembly together, they reported all that God had done with them, and that he had opened a door of trust to the nations.THE THREAD
And when they blow with them, all the assembly shall gather to you at the door of the tent of meeting.The Hebrew verb for “assemble” here comes from the same root קהל (Q-H-L, assemble) as “gather” in Leviticus 8:3. The shared root ties the assembly to the act of gathering at the tent’s entrance.
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