What Does Exodus 36:5 Mean in the King James?

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.

Exodus 36:5 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

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.

“much more than enough” 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

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 stuff they had was sufficient for all the work to make it, and too much.

Exodus 36:7 · KJVThe work is fully supplied, with material still left over.

And they did all eat, and were filled. And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes.

Mark 6:42-43 · KJVEveryone is filled, and the shared provision leaves twelve baskets of fragments.

And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work:

2 Corinthians 9:8 · KJVSufficiency becomes abundance that can extend toward every good work.

THE THREAD

And Moses gave commandment, and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp, saying, Let neither man nor woman make any more work for the offering of the sanctuary. So the people were restrained from bringing.

Exodus 36:6 · KJV

“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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