What Does Numbers 28:30 Mean?
One shaggy goat, to make a covering for you.
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 one kid of the goats, to make an atonement for you.THE KEY
The word translated “atonement” is kaphar, “covering”: the verse pictures a covering made for you through one goat.
THE MEANING
You are the one for whom covering is made, and its appointed form here is a single goat. The verse gives that covering a concrete shape: it is enacted for you.
THE ROOT
לְכַפֵּר
lekhapper
GROWS FROM
כפר
to cover, or cover over
The Hebrew verb holds the image of covering inside what English renders “atonement.” Its branches preserve that physical image and also connect the root with a ransom given on another’s behalf.
ALSO GROWS
kopher: A coating used to cover
כֹּפֶר
In Genesis 6:14, a verb from this root describes coating the ark inside and out, making the covering image tangible.
kopher: A ransom or price given for someone
כֹּפֶר
In Exodus 21:30, the same root names a payment made on someone’s behalf, adding the sense of something given to cover a liability.
THE PATTERN
The root kaphar links atonement with covering, from a coating placed over a surface to an act made for a person.
Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; make nests in the ark, and cover it within and without with pitch.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.Therefore he was bound to become like his brothers in all things, so that he might become a compassionate and steady high priest in the things toward God, to make a covering for the shortcomings of the people.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.Leviticus uses the same root כפר (kaphar, “cover”) as Numbers 28:30. It names cleansing alongside the covering made for you, opening up what this single goat’s appointed act means in the verse.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us