What Does Numbers 4:28 Mean in the King James?
This is the service of the families of the sons of Gershon in the tabernacle of the congregation: and their charge shall be under the hand of Ithamar the son of Aaron the priest.
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 Gershonites’ service is both assigned work and a guarded responsibility held under Ithamar’s hand.
THE MEANING
The verse holds two parts of service together: the work carried out by the families and the responsibility entrusted to an overseer. Their task is specific, shared, and held within accountable care.
THE ROOT
וּמִשְׁמַרְתָּם
umishmeratam
GROWS FROM
שמר
To keep watch, guard, or preserve.
“Charge” carries the sense of something kept and watched over, not merely a task on a list. The verse distinguishes the families’ service from the responsibility that safeguards it, placing that charge under Ithamar’s hand.
ALSO GROWS
shamar: To keep or guard.
שָׁמַר
The root action behind the assigned charge: watchfulness is built into the responsibility.
shomer: A keeper or watchman.
שֹׁמֵר
This branch names the one who watches over something entrusted to them.
mishmeret: A watch, guard duty, or assigned charge.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת
This is the noun form underlying the verse’s “charge,” connecting responsibility with keeping watch.
עֲבֹדַת
avodat
GROWS FROM
עבד
To serve or work.
“Service” here belongs to a word family that includes both serving and the servant. The verse presents the tabernacle’s work as concrete labor carried out by families, with its oversight held by another hand.
ALSO GROWS
avad: To serve or work.
עָבַד
This verb gives the service its active sense: carrying out work.
eved: A servant.
עֶבֶד
The same root links the work to the person who serves.
avodah: Work or service.
עֲבֹדָה
This noun names the labor assigned to the families.
THE PATTERN
Shared work becomes accountable service when its duties are assigned and kept under watch.
And they shall keep his charge, and the charge of the whole congregation before the tabernacle of the congregation, to do the service of the tabernacle.This is the sum of the tabernacle, even of the tabernacle of testimony, as it was counted, according to the commandment of Moses, for the service of the Levites, by the hand of Ithamar, son to Aaron the priest.As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.THE THREAD
This is the sum of the tabernacle, even of the tabernacle of testimony, as it was counted, according to the commandment of Moses, for the service of the Levites, by the hand of Ithamar, son to Aaron the priest.Both verses name the Levites’ service and place its oversight “by the hand of Ithamar.” Exodus makes the shared work visible as part of the whole tabernacle’s accounting, opening the verse’s link between service and entrusted responsibility.
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