“After the queen of Sh’va had seen all Shlomo’s wisdom, the palace he had built, the food at his table, the manner of seating his officials, the manner in which his staff served him, how they were dressed, his personal servants and his burnt offering which he offered in the house of Adonai, it left her breathless.” – 1 Kings 10:5
Alrighty, today I’m gonna be getting all Hebrew on your rear ends.
First, lemme start by reminding you of a key fundamental about ancient Hebrew.
Ancient Hebrew did NOT have any vowels.
That’s right.
Lemme give you an example of what this would be like for us in English.
Take the word “hope” for instance.
Without the vowels, it would be hp.
Now imagine all the different words that could come from this.
We could come up with hip, hoop, heap, hop, and so on.
So in a given sentence, how do we know which word it is?
The answer is context, homie.
For instance, if I say…
“Reading Scripture gives me hp.”
Would it make sense to say…
“Reading Scripture gives me hip.”
No, right?
So, obviously, the most plausible answer is…
“Reading Scripture gives me HOPE.”
However, what do we do when we encounter a word where two words would make sense contextually?
For instance…
“My Uncle Larry is a really FT dude.”
FT could be “fit” or “fat,” right?
So unless we see a recent photo, we can’t know for sure whether the sentence is saying…
“Larry is a fat dude.”
Or…
“Larry is a fit dude.”
Now the reason I bring this up is that some academic homies will argue we encounter this exact problem in 1 Kings 10:5.
We’re told that Solomon offered up a “burnt offering” in front of the Queen of Saba.
Now “burnt offering” in Hebrew is OLAH.
Or AYIN, LAMED, and HEI in Hebrew: עלה
However, there is another Hebrew word that’s spelled exactly the same.
It is ALAH, and it means “to go up,” as in “to ascend.”
It’s also spelled with an AYIN, LAMED, and HEI in Hebrew: עלה
Now, because of this, some Torah teachers will say that עלה actually means “staircase” because it goes up.
I’m not so sure that homie will hunt.
Why?
Because ALAH is a verb.
It means “to go up.”
It’s an action, not a thing.
So it can’t be a staircase any more than “climbed” can be a ladder.
If the Bible wants to say “stairs,” it uses a different word, MA’ALAH.
But here’s where it gets good.
These words aren’t random lookalikes like “fit” and “fat.”
They come from the same root.
And the root עלה means “go up.”
That one root gives us a whole family of words:
ALAH, to go up.
‘Olah, the offering that goes up.
MA’ALAH, a stair, the thing you go up on.
So essentially, what is an OLAH?
It’s literally “the thing that goes up.”
And here’s why.
With most offerings, the priests or the worshiper got to eat part of it.
But not the OLAH.
Nobody ate any of it.
The whole animal went on the altar.
And as it burned, the smoke rose up.
Up from the altar.
Up past the Temple.
Up to God.
That’s the picture built right into the word.
The offering didn’t just get burned.
It went UP.
That’s why the OLAH can also be called the “ascent offering,” or the “going-up offering.”
Leviticus 1:9 even says the rising smoke is a soothing aroma to the LORD.
The Bible loves this wordplay!
In 1 Kings 3:4, it says:
אֶלֶף עֹלוֹת יַעֲלֶה שְׁלֹמֹה
“A thousand going-up offerings Solomon made go up.”
Same root.
Noun and verb.
Back to back.
Okay, so back to the Queen of Saba.
Check out the very next words in 1 Kings 10:5.
Here’s the Hebrew:
וְעֹלָתוֹ אֲשֶׁר יַעֲלֶה בֵּית יְהוָה
See that word YA’ ALEH?
Here’s the tricky part.
In Hebrew, “he made go up” and “he went up” are spelled and pronounced exactly the same.
So the verse can read…
“His burnt offering which he offered up at the house of the LORD.”
Or…
“His ascent by which he went up to the house of the LORD.”
And when the Chronicler tells this same story in 2 Chronicles 9:4, he uses a different word from the same root.
Aliyah.
And that word means “ascent.”
So that’s where the stairway homies are coming from.
Not from ALAH meaning “staircase.”
But from the Chronicler’s word for “ascent.”
That’s why the King James says “his ascent by which he went up unto the house of the LORD.”
And the NASB even says “his stairway.”
But the NIV and ESV go with “burnt offerings.”
So which is it, homeroos?
Honestly?
Both work.
Is Uncle Larry fit or fat in this case?
Was the Queen of Saba impressed with the ascending smoke from a “burnt offering”?
An OLAH or עלה.
Or was she impressed by a grand “stairway” going up to the house of the LORD?
An ALIYAH, an ascent: עליה.
Without a photo of Larry and Solomon’s palace, we can’t be 100% sure.
Anyway, now you know why your Bible translations don’t always agree.
It ain’t that somebody’s messing with the Word.
It’s that the Hebrew letters can honestly point two ways.
But either way, the picture is the same.
Something in Solomon’s house was going UP to God.
And it left the Queen speechless.
Alrighty, I know this is getting long, but I just gotta close with a takeaway.
So if you’re Jewish, this is gonna register instantly.
But do you know what word is used to describe the action of a Jew living in a foreign land when he or she returns to Israel?
It is ALIYAH.
They are literally “going up” or “ascending” to the Holy Land.
So yeah, if you’re a Hebrew (including all tribes here, and not just Yehuda) and you’re living in GOYIM territory.
What the heck are you doing, man?
It’s time to make ALIYAH.
And save a room for me when I go up to visit ya!
Done.
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