What Does Numbers 7:14 Mean in the King James?

One spoon of ten shekels of gold, full of incense:

Numbers 7:14 · 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 incense is named by what it becomes when it burns: smoke rising from what the spoon holds.

THE MEANING

The image places a small gold vessel before you, already full of incense. The Hebrew word for incense carries the act of making smoke within it, so the offering is described both by what is held and by what rises from it.

THE ROOT

קְטֹרֶת

qetoret

GROWS FROM

קטר

q-t-r

To burn incense or produce smoke.

The word translated “incense” belongs to the same root as the act of making smoke. The verse holds the substance and its rising transformation together in one word-family.

ALSO GROWS

qittēr: To burn incense; make smoke.

קִטֵּר

This verbal branch names the action that releases the incense as smoke.

qittor: Smoke.

קִטּוֹר

This branch names what the burning produces, completing the movement from what the spoon holds to what rises.

THE PATTERN

Incense becomes an image of what rises before God, including prayer.

And when Aaron lighteth the lamps at even, he shall burn incense upon it, a perpetual incense before the LORD throughout your generations.

Exodus 30:8 · KJVIncense is burned continually before the LORD, so the offering is named through the smoke it produces.

Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.

Psalm 141:2 · KJVPrayer is compared directly to incense set before God.

And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.

Revelation 8:3 · KJVIncense and prayer appear together before God, joining the rising offering to the prayers of the saints.

THE THREAD

Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.

Psalm 141:2 · KJV

Psalm 141 uses the same Hebrew word, ⁨קְטֹרֶת⁩ (qetoret, incense), to picture prayer set before God. The full spoon in Numbers becomes a prayer image: what is held is also what rises.

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