What Does Leviticus 9:20 Mean?
And they set the fat upon the breasts, and he sent the fat up in smoke upon the altar.
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 they put the fat upon the breasts, and he burnt the fat upon the altar:THE KEY
The altar’s action is not merely burning: the Hebrew verb means making smoke, from the same root as the word for incense.
THE MEANING
The fat is set upon the breasts, then made smoke on the altar. The Hebrew verb holds the action of burning and the rising smoke together, as it does in the word for incense. The verse keeps the offering tangible: fat, breasts, altar.
THE ROOT
וַיַּקְטֵר
wayyaqṭēr
GROWS FROM
קטר
q-ṭ-r
To make smoke; to offer as incense.
“sent up in smoke” in this verse is wayyaqṭēr. The verb translated “burnt” shares its root with the Hebrew word for incense and with a word for smoke. The English gives the action as burning; the root also lets you see the offering becoming smoke on the altar.
ALSO GROWS
qetōret: Incense
קְטֹרֶת
This is the incense that is made to smoke; its shared root reveals the link between the altar’s burning and incense.
qīṭōr: Smoke, as from a furnace
קִיטֹר
This word names what the altar’s action produces: smoke.
THE PATTERN
An offering placed before God becomes smoke that rises, and prayer is pictured in the same way.
And the priest sends them up in smoke upon the altar, bread of an offering of fire for a fragrance that settles. All the fat is the LORD's.Let my prayer be set before you as smoke, and the lifting of my palms as the evening offering.And the smoke of the incense rises with the prayers of the set-apart ones, from the hand of the messenger, before the face of God.THE THREAD
And Aaron shall make sweet smoke rise upon it every morning; when he trims the lamps, he shall make the smoke rise upon it.The Hebrew verb for “burn” here shares the root קטר (q-ṭ-r), meaning to make smoke or offer as incense, with the verb in Leviticus. The root connects the altar’s burning fat with incense made to smoke.
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