What Does Numbers 28:17 Mean in the King James?

And in the fifteenth day of this month is the feast: seven days shall unleavened bread be eaten.

Numbers 28:17 · 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.

THE KEY

The Hebrew for seven echoes fullness, so the unleavened bread marks a complete span, not a single symbolic meal.

THE MEANING

The feast takes shape across a full seven-day span: unleavened bread is eaten throughout it. Its defining sign fills the whole period rather than appearing for one moment.

THE ROOT

שִׁבְעַת

shiv'at

GROWS FROM

שבע

sh-b-ʿ

The root family carries the senses of seven, being full or satisfied, and swearing an oath.

The word for seven shares its consonants with forms meaning “be full” or “be satisfied.” That echo lets the seven days read as a full measure: the unleavened eating extends through the whole feast.

ALSO GROWS

sheva: Seven.

שֶׁבַע

This is the number that sets the feast’s duration.

savea: Full or satisfied.

שָׂבֵעַ

Its shared consonants lend “seven days” an echo of fullness or completion.

nishba: Swore an oath.

נִשְׁבַּע

This related form carries the sense of a binding commitment, giving the seven-day span an echo of a fully bounded measure.

THE PATTERN

A set-apart span takes shape through unleavened bread and the clearing away of leaven.

Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.

Exodus 12:15 · KJVThe seven-day span is paired with putting leaven away, making the full measure visible in both what is eaten and what is removed.

Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

1 Corinthians 5:8 · KJVThe feast’s unleavened bread becomes an image for a whole way of life cleared of malice and wickedness.

THE THREAD

Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.

Exodus 12:15 · KJV

Both verses name seven days of ⁨מַצּוֹת⁩ (matstsot, unleavened bread). Exodus also names the removal of leaven, showing how the feast’s full span is embodied in what is eaten and what is put away.

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