What Does 1 Chronicles 15:15 Mean in the King James?
And the children of the Levites bare the ark of God upon their shoulders with the staves thereon, as Moses commanded according to the word of the LORD.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse makes the word part of the carrying: the sacred is borne by shoulders and poles in a way the word has already specified.
THE MEANING
The carrying is physical and specified: shoulders bear the ark through its poles, according to Moses’ command and the word of the LORD. The verse speaks now of sacred weight as something carried through an embodied form rather than held as an abstraction.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that the manner of carrying sacred purpose is irrelevant: the verse names the object and the way together.
THE ROOT
וַיִּשְׂאוּ
wayyiśʾû
GROWS FROM
נשא
Lift, carry, bear.
“bare” in this verse is wayyiśʾû. The root נשא gathers lifting and bearing into one motion; מַשָּׂא (massa) is a load, and the same verb appears with crookedness in a phrase rendered “forgiving iniquity” (Exodus 34:7). English separates physical carrying from inner burden, while the Hebrew verb holds them within one range.
ALSO GROWS
massa: Burden, load.
מַשָּׂא
The carrier’s root also names the load itself, making the ark’s carrying an actual weight rather than an abstraction.
nōśēʾ ʿāwōn: Bearing crookedness; a phrase rendered “forgiving iniquity” in Exodus 34:7.
נֹשֵׂא עָוֹן
The same verb can describe bearing crookedness, showing how Hebrew keeps physical weight and inner burden within one word’s range.
THE PATTERN
Scripture makes weight visible through the bodies and relationships that bear it.
At that time the LORD separated the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant of the LORD, to stand before the LORD to minister unto him, and to bless in his name, unto this day.And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.THE THREAD
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.Isaiah’s “borne” is נשא (nasa), the same root as “bare” here. The same verb carries both the ark’s physical weight and the griefs named in Isaiah, widening the image of bearing from a sacred object to human pain.
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