What Does Numbers 7:64 Mean?
One kid of the goats, as an offering for falling short.
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
One kid of the goats for a sin offering:THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “sin offering” grows from the root meaning “to miss,” naming the goat by the missing it addresses.
THE MEANING
One goat is named as an offering for the missing. Its name keeps that missing in view as the offering is presented, and the verse gives the offering a specific form and measure: one goat.
THE ROOT
חַטָּאת
ḥaṭṭāʾt
GROWS FROM
חטא
To miss, go wrong, or sin.
“as an offering for falling short” in this verse is ḥaṭṭāʾt. The same three-letter root links חַטָּאת (ḥaṭṭāʾt, sin offering) with words for missing and for the act of missing. The offering’s name keeps its relation to the missing visible; the verse names both the gift and what it addresses.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāṭāʾ: To miss or sin.
חָטָא
This verb shares the root and shows the action behind the offering’s name.
ḥēṭ: Missing or sin.
חֵטְא
This noun names the missing itself, the same idea carried in the word for the offering.
ḥaṭṭāʾt: Sin, or an offering for sin, the offering for the missing.
חַטָּאת
This form names the offering in the verse and joins its purpose to the root meaning.
THE PATTERN
The offering is identified by what it addresses, whether its form is an animal, flour, or a single sacrifice.
And if he brings his drawing near, a lamb, for the offering for falling short, he brings a female without blemish.But if his hand does not reach two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, then he who misses the mark brings as his drawing near the tenth part of an ephah of fine flour as an offering for falling short; he sets no oil upon it, neither does he set any white resin upon it, for it is an offering for it.But this one, after bringing near one slain offering for shortcomings, sat down without break at the right hand of God.THE THREAD
And if he brings his drawing near, a lamb, for the offering for falling short, he brings a female without blemish.The same חַטָּאת (ḥaṭṭāʾt, offering for the missing) is paired here with a lamb. The shared root draws attention from the goat’s kind to what the offering is for.
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