What Does Numbers 15:13 Mean?
All who are born in the land shall do these things in this manner, in offering an offering of fire, a scent that settles to the LORD.
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
All that are born of the country shall do these things after this manner, in offering an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.THE KEY
The offering is named as an act of bringing near, while its aroma carries the root of rest.
THE MEANING
Your approach to the LORD is pictured as a concrete act with a shared form; the offering itself is a bringing-near. Its aroma carries the language of rest, holding nearness and settled reception together.
THE ROOT
לְהַקְרִיב
lehaqriv
GROWS FROM
קרב
To draw near or bring close.
The Hebrew verb translated “offering” comes from the root for drawing near. The verse presents the act as movement toward the LORD, not merely as something given up.
ALSO GROWS
qarov: Near, close.
קָרוֹב
The shared root makes the offering an act of coming near, not just an object presented.
qorbān: An offering; something brought near.
קָרְבָּן
This noun makes explicit the approach already present in the verb used here.
נִיחֹחַ
nichoach
GROWS FROM
נוח
To rest, settle, or come to rest.
“scent that settles” in this verse is nichoach. The word behind “sweet savour” is rooted in the language of rest and settling. Beside the verb for drawing near, it joins approach with an aroma described as restful and pleasing.
ALSO GROWS
menuchah: Rest, repose, or a resting place.
מְנוּחָה
It shows the root’s sense of rest as a settled state, echoed here in the aroma.
vattanach: And it rested or settled.
וַתָּנַח
This form describes the ark settling on the mountains in Genesis 8:4; the same root brings the image of settling into the phrase “sweet savour.”
THE PATTERN
An act of drawing near is pictured through an offering whose aroma signals rest and welcome.
And its inward parts and its legs he shall wash in water, and the priest shall send all of it up in smoke upon the altar, a rising offering, an offering of fire, a fragrance that settles to the LORD.And the LORD smelled the fragrance of rest, and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground for man's sake, for the shaping of man's heart is evil from his youth, and I will not again strike down every living thing, as I have done.And walk in love, as the Anointed One also loved us and handed himself over for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God, a fragrance that settles sweetly.THE THREAD
And the LORD smelled the fragrance of rest, and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground for man's sake, for the shaping of man's heart is evil from his youth, and I will not again strike down every living thing, as I have done.Genesis 8:21 repeats נִיחֹחַ (nichoach, “restful or pleasing aroma”), from נוח (nuach, “rest, settle”). There the aroma is followed by the LORD’s resolve not to strike every living thing again, so the image of rest opens the offering here into a moment of settled response.
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