What Does Leviticus 9:7 Mean?
And Moses said to Aaron, Draw near to the altar, and make your offering for falling short and your rising offering, and make a covering for yourself and for the people; and make the offering of the people, and make a covering for them, as the LORD commanded.
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 Moses said unto Aaron, Go unto the altar, and offer thy sin offering, and thy burnt offering, and make an atonement for thyself, and for the people: and offer the offering of the people, and make an atonement for them; as the LORD commanded.THE KEY
Even the priest who stands at the altar needs the same covering as the people.
THE MEANING
Moses, the one drawn out, speaks a command in which the priest’s missing is named beside the people’s. Covering is made for both, and the people’s offering is brought near. The verse speaks now as a shared condition: service does not place anyone beyond the need for covering.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that the person who serves others has no missing of their own: Aaron’s need is named alongside the people’s.
THE ROOT
וְכִפֶּר
ve-khipper
GROWS FROM
כפר
kaphar
cover, make a covering
“make a covering” in this verse is ve-khipper. The verb translated “make an atonement” carries the sense of covering. It is repeated for Aaron and for the people, so the priest who performs the rite stands within the same need as the community.
ALSO GROWS
kōfer: ransom or covering price
כֹּפֶר
This branch shows covering as something given to answer for a life or a debt.
kippurim: atonements, coverings
כִּפֻּרִים
The plural form carries the same covering language into the named rites of atonement.
קָרְבָּן
qorbān
GROWS FROM
קרב
qarav
approach, draw near
“Draw near to” in this verse is qorbān. The people’s offering is a qorbān, from the same root as the command to approach the altar. English makes “offering” sound like an object alone; the Hebrew also carries the movement of drawing near.
ALSO GROWS
qerav: come near, approach
קְרַב
This is the command to go toward the altar, sharing its root with the people’s offering.
qarov: near
קָרוֹב
This branch keeps the nearness inside the word family that names the offering.
חַטָּאת
chatta’t
GROWS FROM
חטא
chata
miss, go wrong
“make your offering for falling short” in this verse is chatta’t. The same Hebrew word can name both the missing and the offering brought for it. The phrase holds a failure and its ritual response together, where English can make “sin” sound like an abstraction separate from the offering.
ALSO GROWS
chata: miss, offend
חָטָא
This verb names the missing that the offering addresses.
chet: a missing, fault, or offense
חֵטְא
This noun keeps the idea of missing within the same root family as the offering.
THE PATTERN
Scripture presents covering for missing as a concrete act that extends from the priest to the people.
For on that day the priest makes a covering for you, to cleanse you, so that you may be clean from all your shortcomings before the LORD.And the priest shall make a covering for all the assembly of the children of Israel, and it shall be released to them, for it is straying. And they shall bring their drawing near, an offering of fire to the LORD, and their offering for falling short before the LORD, for their straying.And nearly all things are cleansed in blood according to the instruction, and without the pouring out of blood, no release comes.THE THREAD
For on that day the priest makes a covering for you, to cleanse you, so that you may be clean from all your shortcomings before the LORD.The Hebrew verb כִּפֶּר (khipper, “covers” or “makes atonement”) appears for Aaron and for the people; Leviticus 16:30 uses the same כפר (kaphar, “cover”) root and names cleansing as its result. The connection shows one act of covering extending from the priest to the whole people.
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