What Does 2 Chronicles 31:6 Mean?
And concerning the children of Israel and Judah, who settled in the cities of Judah, they also brought in the tenth of oxen and sheep, and the tenth of the set-apart things which had been set apart to the LORD their God, and they laid them down in heaps.
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 concerning the children of Israel and Judah, that dwelt in the cities of Judah, they also brought in the tithe of oxen and sheep, and the tithe of holy things which were consecrated unto the LORD their God, and laid them by heaps.THE KEY
What is set apart to God takes visible form in heaps of real provision.
THE MEANING
Here, devotion has material weight: oxen, sheep, and dedicated goods gather as visible abundance. The heaps make the offering public and countable, not an invisible intention.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that devotion is purely inward and leaves no visible trace: here, what is consecrated has quantity and a public form.
THE ROOT
הַמְקֻדָּשִׁים
hamqudashim
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh
Set apart; marked off as belonging to God.
“set-apart things” in this verse is hamqudashim. English can make consecration sound like a status; this root points to what is set apart, and the verse places those things beside oxen and sheep, then stacks them. The set-apart becomes visible in a gathered store.
ALSO GROWS
qadosh: Set apart
קָדוֹשׁ
This branch names the quality carried by the consecrated goods in the verse.
qodesh: Set-apartness; a holy thing
קֹדֶשׁ
This branch links the consecrated things to what is designated as belonging to the LORD.
מַעֲשֵׂר
ma'aser
GROWS FROM
עשר
ʿ-sh-r
Ten; the word names a tenth, a counted share.
“tenth” in this verse is ma'aser. The tithe’s own name keeps its numerical shape: it is a defined share of the whole, not an undefined surplus. Here that counted portion appears alongside consecrated goods, joining proportion and dedication in one gathered scene.
ALSO GROWS
ʿeser: Ten
עֶשֶׂר
The tithe’s name carries the count that distinguishes a portion from the whole.
ʿasiri: Tenth
עֲשִׂירִי
This related form makes the proportion explicit: a counted tenth is what the verse calls a tithe.
THE PATTERN
What is gathered as set apart becomes shared provision that can meet real needs.
When you have finished setting aside the tenth of all that your land brings in, in the third year, the year of the tenth, and have given it to the Levite, to the sojourner, to the fatherless, and to the widow, so that they may eat within your gates and be filled.and set them down at the feet of the sent ones, and it was given out to each as anyone had need.But through evenness, that in this present season your overflow may fill their lack, and their overflow may fill your lack, that there may be evenness.THE THREAD
And all the tenth of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the tree, is the LORD's; it is set apart to the LORD.The Hebrew ma’aser (מַעֲשֵׂר, tithe) and qodesh (קֹדֶשׁ, set-apartness) meet here as they do in the verse’s tithe of consecrated things. The heap is a counted share already marked as belonging to the LORD.
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