What Does Numbers 7:63 Mean in the King James?

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

Numbers 7:63 · 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 offering is named by its motion: what rises onto the altar rises from it.

THE MEANING

You see the offering in concrete form: one young bull, one ram, one year-old lamb, each counted separately. The Hebrew name ⁨עֹלָה⁩ (ʿolah, ascent offering) carries the movement of rising within the act of burning, holding both the cost of the animals and the smoke that ascends.

THE ROOT

עֹלָה

ʿolah

GROWS FROM

עלה

go up, ascend

Alongside the KJV phrase “burnt offering,” ⁨עֹלָה⁩ (ʿolah, ascent offering) carries the sense of rising. The related verb ⁨עָלָה⁩ (ʿalah, go up) keeps that motion inside the noun: what is burned on the altar rises as smoke.

ALSO GROWS

ʿalah: go up, ascend

עָלָה

The verb names the upward movement held inside the offering’s name.

maʿalah: ascent, upward path or step

מַעֲלָה

This branch makes the root’s upward movement visible as a path of ascent.

THE PATTERN

An offering is a bodily giving over, whether it rises from the altar in smoke or is presented as a living sacrifice.

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 altar offering uses the same Hebrew ascent-word, placing the rising movement alongside the act of giving.

But his inwards and his legs shall he wash in water: and the priest shall burn all on the altar, to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.

Leviticus 1:9 · KJVThe priest burns the prepared offering on the altar, giving the ascent a concrete, bodily form.

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 image shifts from smoke to a living body, still naming the body as what is presented in offering.

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

Genesis uses ⁨וַיַּעַל⁩ (vayyaʿal, offered up) beside ⁨עֹלֹת⁩ (ʿolot, ascent offerings), both from ⁨עלה⁩ (ʿ-l-h, go up). Numbers uses the same offering noun in the singular, so the shared root lets you hear ascent within the name of the sacrifice.

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