What Does Numbers 7:21 Mean in the King James?

One young bullock, one ram, one lamb of the first year, for a burnt offering:

Numbers 7:21 · 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 name for a burnt offering means “ascent,” holding the animal’s rising together with its burning.

THE MEANING

You meet a concrete offering: a young bull, a ram, and a year-old lamb, each designated to be given as a burnt offering. Its Hebrew name carries the sense of ascent, so the verse holds the gift and its rising together.

THE ROOT

עֹלָה

ʿolah

GROWS FROM

עלה

ʿ-l-h

To go up; to ascend.

“burnt offering” in this verse is ʿolah. English highlights the burning; the Hebrew name also holds ascent. The root gathers the offering and its upward movement into one image: what is given goes up.

ALSO GROWS

ʿalah: To go up; to ascend.

עָלָה

This verb supplies the motion held in ⁨עֹלָה⁩: the offering is named as something that rises.

ʿaliyah: Ascent; going up.

עֲלִיָּה

This related noun makes the upward movement explicit, echoing the ascent within the offering’s name.

THE PATTERN

What is given to God becomes an offering expressed through concrete substance and the body.

And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

Genesis 8:20 · KJVThe offering is made from actual animals and placed on the altar, as it is in Numbers 7:21.

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 and lifted hands take the form of an offering presented before God.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

Romans 12:1 · KJVThe offering is expressed through the body, presented as a living sacrifice.

THE THREAD

And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

Genesis 8:20 · KJV

The same Hebrew noun ⁨עֹלָה⁩ (ʿolah, ascent) is translated “burnt offerings” here. Its root links the animals named in Numbers 7:21 with an offering understood through the movement of rising.

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