What Does Numbers 28:8 Mean?
And the other lamb you shall make at evening, as the gift of the morning, and as its poured offering, you shall make it, an offering of fire, a fragrance of rest 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
And the other lamb shalt thou offer at even: as the meat offering of the morning, and as the drink offering thereof, thou shalt offer it, a sacrifice made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.THE KEY
The Hebrew behind “sweet savour” shares its root with “rested,” so the evening offering rises as an aroma of settling before the LORD.
THE MEANING
The day’s close sits within a repeated pattern of approach: the evening lamb is presented with grain and drink, as in the morning. The fire offering is called a pleasing aroma, with a Hebrew word carrying the sense of soothing or settling. The evening hour is held inside a recurring rhythm of presentation before the LORD.
THE ROOT
רֵיחַ נִיחֹחַ
re'ach nichoach
GROWS FROM
נוח
nun-vav-ḥet
To rest, settle, or come to rest.
“fragrance of rest” in this verse is re'ach nichoach. The word נִיחֹחַ (nichoach, soothing or pleasing) is linked to נוח (nuach, to rest or settle). The phrase רֵיחַ נִיחֹחַ (re’ach nichoach, an aroma of soothing) gives the offering’s pleasing scent a resonance of settling and rest.
ALSO GROWS
menuchah: Rest; resting place.
מְנוּחָה
This noun makes the root’s sense of settling concrete as rest or a place of rest, close to the soothing quality of nichoach.
vat-tanakh: And it rested; used of the ark in Genesis 8:4.
וַתָּנַח
The ark’s resting and the offering’s soothing aroma share the root נוח, joining two scriptural images of coming to rest.
THE PATTERN
Offerings presented to God are repeatedly described as a pleasing aroma.
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 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 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 ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.נִיחֹחַ (nichoach, soothing or pleasing) in רֵיחַ נִיחֹחַ (re’ach nichoach, an aroma of soothing) is linked to נוח (nuach, to rest or settle), the root used when Genesis says the ark “rested.” That shared root lets the evening offering’s aroma and the ark’s landing echo one another through the language of settling.
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