What Does Leviticus 9:15 Mean?
And he brought near the offering of the people, and took the goat, which was the offering for falling short of the people, and slaughtered it, and offered it for falling short, as the first.
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 brought the people’s offering, and took the goat, which was the sin offering for the people, and slew it, and offered it for sin, as the first.THE KEY
The root of “missing” also names the act rendered “offered it for sin,” joining the people’s failure to ritual cleansing while leaving the goat’s death visible.
THE MEANING
The people’s missing is met in a concrete act: the goat is taken, slaughtered, and ritually cleansed, as with the first offering. The verse keeps both the cleansing and its cost in view; the act is neither bloodless nor abstract.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse overturns the idea that this offering is costless: the goat is explicitly slaughtered.
THE ROOT
וַיְחַטְּאֵהוּ
wayeḥaṭṭēhû
GROWS FROM
חטא
ḥṭʾ
At its base, ḥāṭāʾ means to miss or go wrong; in a ritual form, the root can also mean to purge or cleanse.
“offering for falling short” in this verse is wayeḥaṭṭēhû. The phrase translated “offered it for sin” comes from the same root as “missing.” In ritual use, that root can name cleansing, so the Hebrew joins the people’s missing to the act that purges it, without concealing the goat’s slaughter.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāṭāʾ: To miss or go wrong.
חָטָא
This is the root’s basic sense, connecting the people’s “sin” with a missing.
ḥaṭṭāʾt: Missing; also an offering for missing.
חַטָּאת
This is the word for the goat’s “sin offering,” carrying both the missing and the rite addressing it.
ḥiṭṭēʾ: To purge or cleanse in a ritual setting.
חִטֵּא
This verb form shows how the same root can name the act of cleansing associated with the offering.
קָרְבַּן
qorbān
GROWS FROM
קרב
q-r-b
qārab means to draw near or approach.
The word rendered “offering” is qorbān, from the root for drawing near. Beside the root for missing, it places what has gone wrong and the act brought near in the same scene.
ALSO GROWS
qārab: To draw near or approach.
קָרַב
This is the verb beneath qorbān, giving the offering the sense of something brought near.
qārōb: Near or close.
קָרוֹב
This related form of the root makes the language of approach audible in the word for offering.
THE PATTERN
The text joins the people’s missing to a concrete offering brought near, and keeps the cost of that approach visible.
And he does to this young bull as he did to the young bull for falling short, and the priest makes a covering for them, and it is released to them.Yet the LORD delighted to crush him, and to sicken him. When you make his living soul a guilt offering, he shall see his seed, and lengthen his days, and the delight of the LORD shall break through in his hand.But this one, after bringing near one slain offering for shortcomings, sat down without break at the right hand of God.THE THREAD
And he does to this young bull as he did to the young bull for falling short, and the priest makes a covering for them, and it is released to them.Both verses use חַטָּאת (ḥaṭṭāʾt, missing/offering for missing) for the sin offering. The shared word holds the people’s missing and the rite addressing it within one root-family, a connection English separates.
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