What Does Genesis 31:54 Mean in the King James?
Then Jacob offered sacrifice upon the mount, and called his brethren to eat bread: and they did eat bread, and tarried all night in the mount.
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
Here sacrifice opens into a shared table: the brothers eat together and remain through the night on the mountain.
THE MEANING
The verse holds devotion and fellowship in one scene: sacrifice is followed by bread shared among brothers, then by a shared night. Kinship takes shape through food and presence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The offering is not only a private act directed upward; here it also gathers people around shared bread.
THE ROOT
וַיִּזְבַּח
vayizbach
GROWS FROM
זבח
zavach
To slaughter for sacrifice.
“offered” in this verse is vayizbach. The root names slaughter for an offering, and the verse carries that act into a meal among brothers. What can sound like separate piety and hospitality unfolds as one sequence: sacrifice gathers people around food.
ALSO GROWS
zevach: A sacrifice.
זֶבַח
The noun names the offering at the center of Jacob’s gathering.
mizbeach: An altar.
מִזְבֵּחַ
The altar is the place associated with the act of sacrifice; here the mountain holds both offering and meal.
וַיֹּאכְלוּ
vayokhlu
GROWS FROM
אכל
akhal
To eat or consume.
The invitation and the eating share the same concrete act: the brothers are called to eat, and they do. The repeated root makes the gathering tangible, the fellowship is enacted through food, not merely declared.
ALSO GROWS
akhal: To eat.
אָכַל
This verb names the act the brothers perform after Jacob calls them.
okhel: Food.
אֹכֶל
The root links the act of eating to what sustains the gathered people.
THE PATTERN
Shared food makes relationship present through participation.
And he made them a feast, and they did eat and drink.And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?THE THREAD
And Jethro, Moses’ father in law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God: and Aaron came, and all the elders of Israel, to eat bread with Moses’ father in law before God.The word translated “sacrifices” shares the root זבח (zavach), “to slaughter for sacrifice,” with Jacob’s offering. This verse also moves directly from sacrifice to elders eating bread, making the shared meal part of the same pattern.
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