What Does Numbers 18:18 Mean in the King James?
And the flesh of them shall be thine, as the wave breast and as the right shoulder are thine.
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 sacred share here is actual flesh: provision for service is embodied, edible, and set apart.
THE MEANING
The verse names flesh as belonging to the one serving, alongside the breast and right shoulder. Nourishment belongs within what is set apart; sacred life does not erase the body’s need to eat.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the idea that what is sacred must be detached from bodily need.
THE ROOT
בָּשָׂר
basar
GROWS FROM
בשר
Flesh; the same consonantal root also forms a verb meaning to announce good news.
“flesh” in this verse is basar. The word names the priest’s literal, edible portion. Its root also carries the verb for announcing good news, an echo that joins bodily life and proclamation without turning the meat into a metaphor.
ALSO GROWS
basar: Flesh, body, or meat
בָּשָׂר
Here it names the tangible food set apart as the priest’s share.
bisser: Announce or bring good news
בִּשֵּׂר
The same consonants carry a word for proclamation, a connection English does not show alongside “flesh.”
THE PATTERN
Those who serve sacred things receive material sustenance from them.
For the wave breast and the heave shoulder have I taken of the children of Israel from off the sacrifices of their peace offerings, and have given them unto Aaron the priest and unto his sons by a statute for ever from among the children of Israel.The priests the Levites, and all the tribe of Levi, shall have no part nor inheritance with Israel: they shall eat the offerings of the LORD made by fire, and his inheritance.Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar?THE THREAD
Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar?This verse makes the structure explicit: those who serve holy things live from them. Numbers gives that structure a bodily shape in the flesh, breast, and shoulder set apart as a share.
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