What Does Leviticus 9:3 Mean?
And speak to the children of Israel, saying, Take a kid of the goats as an offering for falling short, and a calf and a lamb, both in their first year, whole, for the rising offering.
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 unto the children of Israel thou shalt speak, saying, Take ye a kid of the goats for a sin offering; and a calf and a lamb, both of the first year, without blemish, for a burnt offering;THE KEY
One offering addresses the missing; the other ascends whole.
THE MEANING
You see two distinct offerings in one instruction. The kid is designated for the missing; the calf and lamb, both in their first year and without blemish, are designated for the burnt offering. The verse holds these purposes apart while naming wholeness as a concrete condition of what is brought.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that these offerings are interchangeable: the verse assigns different animals and purposes to the offering for the missing and the burnt offering.
THE ROOT
חַטָּאת
ḥaṭṭāʾt
GROWS FROM
חטא
ḥ-ṭ-ʾ
To miss, err, or do wrong.
“offering for falling short” in this verse is ḥaṭṭāʾt. The Hebrew name for this offering belongs to the same word family as “missing” and “to miss.” The root holds the fault and the offering associated with it together, while the verse keeps this offering distinct from the burnt offering.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāṭāʾ: To miss, err, or do wrong.
חָטָא
This verb shares the offering’s root and shows the kind of missing the word family names.
ḥēṭʾ: A missing or offense.
חֵטְא
This noun makes the root link visible: the offering’s name belongs to the same family as the missing it addresses.
עֹלָה
ʿōlāh
GROWS FROM
עלה
ʿ-l-h
To go up or ascend.
“rising offering” in this verse is ʿōlāh. The Hebrew name carries the movement of rising, while “burnt offering” describes the ritual form. Beside the offering for the missing, it gives the verse a second movement: ascent.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālāh: To go up or ascend.
עָלָה
This verb shares the root and makes the upward movement in the offering’s name clear.
maʿălāh: An ascent or a step upward.
מַעֲלָה
This noun preserves the same upward direction carried by the burnt offering’s Hebrew name.
תָּמִים
tāmîm
GROWS FROM
תמם
t-m-m
To be complete, whole, or sound.
Tamim names the animals’ physical soundness here. The same root can describe integrity, but in this verse its force is concrete: the animal brought for the burnt offering is whole, without blemish.
ALSO GROWS
tām: Whole, sound, or blameless.
תָּם
This form shows how the root can describe a whole or blameless person as well as an animal’s soundness.
tōm: Integrity or completeness.
תֹּם
This noun shows the root’s wider sense of wholeness, while the verse applies that wholeness to the animal’s condition.
THE PATTERN
An offering’s purpose is named, and its fitness is marked by wholeness.
Your lamb will be whole, a male of its first year. You will take it from the sheep or from the goats.If his drawing near from the herd is a rising offering, he shall bring near a whole male to the opening of the tent of appointed meeting, and he shall bring it near of his own pleasure before the face of the LORD.How much more will the blood of the Anointed One, who through the breath of the ages brought himself near without blemish to God, cleanse our shared sight from dead works to serve the living God.THE THREAD
If the anointed priest misses the mark so as to bring guilt upon the people, then let him bring near, for his falling short in which he has missed the mark, a young bull without blemish to the LORD as an offering for falling short.The same Hebrew word, חַטָּאת (ḥaṭṭāʾt), names the offering here and in this verse. Leviticus 4:3 also repeats tamim, “whole” or “without blemish,” keeping the offering for the missing and the animal’s soundness in the same frame.
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