What Does Exodus 36:5 Mean?
And they spoke unto Moses, saying, The people multiply their bringing, far more than enough for the serving of the work, which the LORD commanded to make.
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 they spake unto Moses, saying, The people bring much more than enough for the service of the work, which the LORD commanded to make.THE KEY
The people are not merely meeting the work’s measure: the Hebrew says they are multiplying what comes in until it exceeds the task.
THE MEANING
The work the LORD commands has more arriving than it can use. The people’s contribution exceeds the task’s measure, and Moses, the “drawn out” one, receives the report. Abundance here is concrete: the work’s need can be measured, and what comes in surpasses it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a divinely commanded work must be sustained by scarcity: here, what is brought exceeds what the work requires.
THE ROOT
מַרְבִּים
marbim
GROWS FROM
רבה
ravah
Increase; become many.
“multiply their bringing” in this verse is marbim. The Hebrew verb carries the sense of increasing or multiplying, not merely supplying a little extra. The people’s bringing grows beyond the work’s measure until “more than enough” is the plain result.
ALSO GROWS
rav: Much, many, great.
רַב
The same family of abundance helps show that the verse describes quantity, not just willingness.
hirbah: Increased; made many.
הִרְבָּה
This causative form echoes the verse’s picture of the materials increasing beyond the work’s requirement.
לְהָבִיא
lehavi
GROWS FROM
בוא
bo
Come or enter; in the causative form, cause to come, bring.
English makes “bring” sound like a transfer between giver and receiver. This Hebrew form pictures something being caused to arrive, so the materials are coming into the work until its need is overtaken.
ALSO GROWS
ba: Came; comes.
בָּא
This basic form shows the arrival contained inside the verse’s act of bringing.
mavo: Entrance; way in.
מָבוֹא
The same root can name an entrance, giving “bring” the sense of causing something to come in.
מֹשֶׁה
Mosheh
GROWS FROM
משה
mashah
Draw out, as from water; the naming explanation appears in Exodus 2:10.
Moses’s name carries the image of being drawn out; it is part of his nature, not merely a label. Here the people bring the report of abundance to the one whose name holds that image of emergence.
ALSO GROWS
mashah: To draw out.
מָשָׁה
This verb carries the action from which the name Moses is explained.
meshithihu: I drew him out.
מְשִׁיתִהוּ
This is the naming phrase in Exodus 2:10, keeping the act of drawing out inside Moses’s name.
THE PATTERN
Provision gathered for a shared need can meet the work’s measure and still leave an abundance beyond it.
For the material was enough for all the work of making it, and there was more left over.And they all ate and were filled. And they lifted up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces, and of the fish.And God is able to make all favor overflow toward you, so that you, always holding all you need in everything, may overflow into every good work.THE THREAD
And Moses gave commandment, and they passed a voice through the camp, saying, Let neither man nor woman make any more work for the lifted offering of the set-apart place. So the people were held back from bringing.“Restrained from bringing” uses the same Hebrew root בוא (bo, come) in its causative form as “bring” in this verse. The next verse shows the threshold the abundance reaches: more is no longer needed for the work.
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