What Does Numbers 7:87 Mean in the King James?

All the oxen for the burnt offering were twelve bullocks, the rams twelve, the lambs of the first year twelve, with their meat offering: and the kids of the goats for sin offering twelve.

Numbers 7:87 · 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.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The complete offering holds both what rises and what addresses the missing, each in the same twelvefold measure.

THE MEANING

The verse holds together what rises, what is given with it, and what addresses the missing. Each kind appears in a twelvefold count, making the offering a shared whole. The missing has a place within that whole.

THE ROOT

עֹלָה

ʿōlāh

GROWS FROM

עלה

Rise, ascend, go up

The Hebrew name for the burnt offering carries the image of something rising. English names the offering by what happens to it; the root also shows its direction, alongside the gifts and offerings for the missing.

ALSO GROWS

ʿālāh: Rise, go up

עָלָה

The verb shares the offering’s root and makes its upward movement explicit.

ʿăliyyāh: Ascent, going up

עֲלִיָּה

This noun preserves the same movement of rising that is carried in the name of the offering.

חַטָּאת

ḥaṭṭāʾt

GROWS FROM

חטא

Miss, go wrong; the missing

“sin offering” in this verse is ḥaṭṭāʾt. The offering’s name shares its root with the verb for missing or going wrong. Read through that root, it is an offering for the missing: a distinct part of the whole alongside what rises.

ALSO GROWS

ḥāṭāʾ: Miss, go wrong

חָטָא

The verb supplies the seed behind the offering’s name: the missing is what this offering addresses.

ḥēṭʾ: A missing, fault

חֵטְא

This noun from the same root shows how the offering names what has gone wrong.

THE PATTERN

An offering can hold distinct forms of giving together, including what rises toward God and what addresses the missing.

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 verse names the burnt offering as something brought to the altar and offered in a shared act of approach.

And if he be not able to bring a lamb, then he shall bring for his trespass, which he hath committed, two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, unto the LORD; one for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering.

Leviticus 5:7 · KJVThe two offerings appear side by side, one for the missing and one that rises.

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 appears as a living presentation, extending the pattern beyond the animals named in Numbers.

THE THREAD

And if he be not able to bring a lamb, then he shall bring for his trespass, which he hath committed, two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, unto the LORD; one for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering.

Leviticus 5:7 · KJV

This verse pairs the same roots found in Numbers: ⁨עֹלָה⁩ (ʿōlāh, ascending offering) from ⁨עלה⁩ (rise), and ⁨חַטָּאת⁩ (ḥaṭṭāʾt, offering for the missing) from ⁨חטא⁩ (miss). The pair makes the two movements visible: what rises and what addresses the missing each has its place.

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