What Does Numbers 15:11 Mean?
Thus shall it be done for every young bull, or for every ram, or for a lamb, or a young goat.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Thus shall it be done for one bullock, or for one ram, or for a lamb, or a kid.THE KEY
Each kind receives its own measure within one shared pattern, so difference does not undo the order.
THE MEANING
The verse holds unlike forms together: bull, ram, lamb, and kid each receive the offering prescribed for their kind. One order remains whole while its measure answers to each particular form.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that consistency means identical measure: the shared pattern is applied to each kind with its corresponding amount.
THE ROOT
יֵעָשֶׂה
yēʿāśeh
GROWS FROM
עָשָׂה
ʿāśâ
Do, make, carry out.
“done” in this verse is yēʿāśeh. The root עָשָׂה (ʿāśâ) carries both doing and making; here, the instruction becomes an action performed for each listed animal. The same root returns in the next verse, where the pattern is carried out for every unit in the count.
ALSO GROWS
maʿăśeh: Work, deed, or thing made.
מַעֲשֶׂה
This branch names the work that results from doing; here, the prescribed action gives the offering a concrete, repeatable form.
naʿăśeh: Let us make or do (Genesis 1:26).
נַעֲשֶׂה
The same root appears in the act of making at creation; here it marks carrying out an established pattern, joining making and doing in one Hebrew root.
THE PATTERN
A shared order can hold across distinct forms while its measure is applied to each one.
According to the number that you shall prepare, so shall you do to each one according to their number.One judgment shall be yours, as for the sojourner, so for the native, for I am the LORD your God.For just as we have many limbs in one body, and not all the limbs have the same deed.THE THREAD
According to the number that you shall prepare, so shall you do to each one according to their number.The verb translated “do” shares the root עָשָׂה (ʿāśâ), meaning “do” or “make,” with “done” in this verse. The next line reveals the pattern’s rhythm: it is carried out for every offering, according to its number.
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