Properly, a slaughter , i.e. the flesh of an animal; by implication, a sacrifice (the victim or the act)
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זֶבַח is a primary Old Testament word for sacrifice — the slaughtered animal brought to God as an act of worship, atonement, or fellowship. Its weight is not primarily about the death of the animal but about what the death represented: the acknowledgment that communion with a holy God required something costly, something that had life, something that bled.
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Full entry for זֶבַח (H2077) · Open the biblical lexicon
זֶבַח is a primary Old Testament word for sacrifice — the slaughtered animal brought to God as an act of worship, atonement, or fellowship. Its weight is not primarily about the death of the animal but about what the death represented: the acknowledgment that communion with a holy God required something costly, something that had life, something that bled.
The BSB source-word alignment has 162 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include sacrifices (23), vvv (23), . . . (17), sacrifice (12), a sacrifice (10).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 31:54. Its strongest book concentrations include Leviticus (35), Numbers (20), 1 Samuel (17), Psalms (11).
זֶבַח is a primary Old Testament word for sacrifice — the slaughtered animal brought to God as an act of worship, atonement, or fellowship. Its weight is not primarily about the death of the animal but about what the death represented: the acknowledgment that communion with a holy God required something costly, something that had life, something that bled. The peace offering (זֶבַח שְׁלָמִים) was not a transaction but a meal — parts burned for God, parts for the priests, parts eaten by the worshiper and family before the Lord.
This is why the prophets' critique lands so hard: a זֶבַח without covenant loyalty (Hos 6:6), brought with hands full of blood (Isa 1:15), offered while oppressing the poor (Amos 5:21-24), is not worship — it is theater. The word's pastoral power lies in what it implies: that sacrificial approach to God involved substitution, cost, and blood. The NT's reading of Ps 40:6-8 ('sacrifice and offering you did not desire...
I have come to do your will,' Heb 10:5-10) names the trajectory: every זֶבַח in Israel's history was moving toward the one sacrifice that would accomplish what the animal slaughters could only signify.
זֶבַח appears about 162 times in the local Hebrew index, concentrated in Leviticus (the sacrificial law), Samuel and Kings (narrative worship contexts), and the Psalms and prophets (worship and critique). Exodus 12:27 is the theological anchor connecting זֶבַח to the Passover.
You are to reply, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when He struck down the Egyptians and spared our homes.’” Then the people bowed down and worshiped.
The definitive theological identification of the Passover lamb as a זֶבַח. The sacrifice is not merely commemorative — it is the mechanism of protection: the blood on the doorposts (H1818 דָּם) is what causes the Lord to pass over. זֶבַח and דָּם are inseparable at the Passover, establishing the OT's foundational atonement logic.
“If one’s offering is a peace offering and he offers an animal from the herd, whether male or female, he must present it without blemish before the Lord.
The peace offering (זֶבַח שְׁלָמִים) is the fellowship dimension of sacrifice: not exclusively about atonement but about restored communion between the worshiper and God. The shared-meal character — portions for God (burned), portions for priests, portions for the offerer — makes זֶבַח the OT's picture of worship as fellowship.
For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
The prophetic critique at its sharpest. Hosea does not abolish זֶבַח but insists that sacrifice without חֶסֶד (steadfast love) is not what YHWH desires. Jesus quotes this verse twice (Matt 9:13; 12:7) to interpret his own ministry — the אֶמֶת and חֶסֶד that sacrifice was meant to express have arrived in person.
Then You will delight in righteous sacrifices, in whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on Your altar.
After the famous 'you do not delight in sacrifice' of v.16, David ends by affirming that right sacrifice — from a contrite heart — will be acceptable. The critique in Ps 51 is not of the sacrificial system but of sacrifice divorced from genuine repentance. This is the same logic as Hos 6:6: the problem is the divorce, not the זֶבַח itself.
So Israel set out with all that he had, and when he came to Beersheba, he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac.
Jacob's זֶבַח at Beersheba before the descent to Egypt — the last patriarchal sacrifice before the Exodus. The pattern: at pivotal transitions in redemptive history, a זֶבַח marks the moment of approach to God and divine encounter.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Sacrifice grounded in physical slaughter—the concrete act of killing consecrates the offering to God.
Sacrifice grounded in physical slaughter—the concrete act of killing consecrates the offering to God.
properly, a slaughter, i.e. the flesh of an animal; by implication, a sacrifice (the victim or the act) BDB: sacrifice Usage: offer(-ing), sacrifice.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 162 lexical occurrence verses.
זֶבַח is built from this root:
Represents ritual system misused without loyalty.Hosea 6:4-6
Loss of sacrificial privilege signals broken fellowship.Hosea 9:1-6
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
The prophetic critique of זֶבַח (Hos 6:6; Isa 1:11; Amos 5:21-24; Ps 51) is not a rejection of sacrifice but a diagnosis: ritual substituted for reality, animal blood offered while the worshiper's hands were full of oppression and unrepentance. Jesus' use of Hos 6:6 (Matt 9:13; 12:7) is not an abolition of the sacrificial system — it is the announcement that the One the system had been pointing to has arrived.
The trajectory from זֶבַח to θυσία to the one offering of Christ (Heb 10:12) is not a replacement but a fulfillment: Israel's sacrificial trajectory moves toward the day when the sacrifice and the priest and the victim would be the same Person.
Exod.12.27
The root זָבַח (to slaughter) is a cutting verb — the sacrifice is defined by the act of cutting/killing, not by the subsequent burning. This is significant: the OT's primary sacrifice word is grounded in slaughter, not merely in offering. The life is given; the blood is shed; the separation between creature and creator that sin creates is addressed by the violent reality of death.
The LXX consistently renders זֶבַח as θυσία, which comes from θύω (to offer, to sacrifice) — the Greek word family carries the same dual sense of act and victim.
The NT fulfillment trajectory: Exod 12:27 (Passover זֶבַח, blood on doorposts) → Isa 53:7 (Servant led like a lamb to slaughter) → John 1:29 ('the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world') → 1 Cor 5:7 ('Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed') → Heb 10:12 ('when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God'). The entire sacrificial system of the OT is not cancelled but completed: one זֶבַח, once, sufficient.