What Does Exodus 37:14 Mean in the King James?
Over against the border were the rings, the places for the staves to bear the table.
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 table’s carrying points are built into it, so movement belongs to the design of provision.
THE MEANING
What sustains you is not fixed to one place; its support is woven into its structure. The rings hold the staves so the table can be carried while remaining a table. Movement is built into provision, not a threat to it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what sustains you must stay in one place to remain secure.
THE ROOT
נָשָׂא
nasa
GROWS FROM
נשא
to lift, carry, or bear; also to bear or forgive wrongdoing
The word rendered “bear” is לָשֵׂאת (laśeʾt, to carry), from נשא (nasa, to lift or bear). Its reach moves from the literal weight of a table to the weight of wrongdoing carried or forgiven: bearing is both physical support and the taking up of a burden.
ALSO GROWS
nasi: leader, prince; one raised up
נָשִׂיא
This branch carries the root’s sense of lifting into a person who is elevated to lead.
nōśēʾ ʿāwōn: bearing crookedness; idiomatically, forgiving wrongdoing
נֹשֵׂא עָוֹן
The same bearing that supports the table can describe a burden of wrongdoing being taken up and released.
שֻׁלְחָן
shulchan
GROWS FROM
שלח
to send forth, release, or extend
The table’s name carries the root sense of extending provision. Here that extension is built for travel: rings receive the staves, so what provides sustenance can be carried onward.
ALSO GROWS
shalach: send forth, release, or stretch out the hand
שָׁלַח
This root opens the table’s role as provision extended outward, rather than a fixed object alone.
Shiloach: sent; the name of the pool of Siloam
שִׁלֹחַ
The related name preserves the sense of what is sent forth; here, as with the table, provision moves toward its recipient.
THE PATTERN
What is meant to be carried is given a bearer and a way to bear its weight.
Over against the border shall the rings be for places of the staves to bear the table.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.Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.THE THREAD
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.The Hebrew נשא (nasa, to lift or carry) underlies “bear” in both verses: here the staves bear the table; there the speaker bears the reader. The shared root makes support tangible: being carried does not mean movement has stopped, but that a bearer is present.
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