What Does Numbers 18:29 Mean?
From all your gifts you shall lift up every lifted offering of the LORD, of all the fat of it, even the set-apart part of it.
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
Out of all your gifts ye shall offer every heave offering of the LORD, of all the best thereof, even the hallowed part thereof out of it.THE KEY
The gift’s richest part is the part lifted up and set apart, so holiness is pictured as a share drawn from abundance.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks of your gift as something with an inner distinction: a portion is lifted from the whole, and the share marked as sacred comes from its richest part. The set-apart portion is not what remains after abundance is kept back; it is drawn from abundance itself.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that a sacred gift is whatever remains after the valuable part is kept.
THE ROOT
תְּרוּמָה
terumah
GROWS FROM
רום
rum
To rise or be high; in a causative form, to lift or raise.
“lifted offering” in this verse is terumah. English “heave offering” sounds like a category of gift, but the Hebrew noun terumah grows from rum, the same lift-and-raise root as the command “ye shall offer.” The verse repeats one root in both the action and the portion: the offering is the raised share.
ALSO GROWS
ram: High, exalted.
רָם
This branch carries the root’s sense of elevation, making the raised character of the offering audible.
herim: He lifted, raised.
הֵרִים
This verb form shows the action behind the offering: a portion is lifted out from the whole.
marom: Height, high place.
מָרוֹם
This noun keeps the root’s upward movement visible in the word family.
חֶלְבּוֹ
chelbo
GROWS FROM
חלב
ḥ-l-b
Fatness, richness; the rich or choicest portion.
The English “best” gives the portion’s value but removes its texture: the Hebrew says “its fat,” the rich part. The set-apart share is pictured as the part that embodies abundance, not what is left over.
ALSO GROWS
chelev: Fat; the rich or choice portion.
חֵלֶב
This is the noun underlying “its best,” preserving the concrete image of the richest share.
chalav: Milk.
חָלָב
The same consonantal family names milk, another rich animal yield, keeping the verse’s image grounded in abundance.
מִקְדְּשׁוֹ
mikdesho
GROWS FROM
קדש
q-d-sh
To set apart as sacred.
“set-apart” in this verse is mikdesho. The q-d-sh family joins holiness with being set apart. Here that is not an abstract quality: the sacred share is a portion distinguished from within the gift itself.
ALSO GROWS
qodesh: Sacredness; a holy thing.
קֹדֶשׁ
This branch names what the portion is marked as in the verse.
qadosh: Set apart, sacred.
קָדוֹשׁ
This adjective carries the root’s sense of distinction into the condition of what is dedicated.
miqdash: Sanctuary, a set-apart place.
מִקְדָּשׁ
The sanctuary is the place shaped by the same root: a space marked off as sacred.
THE PATTERN
A portion drawn from the whole and set apart discloses how the whole is ordered toward God.
You shall lift up a cake from the first of your dough as a lifted offering. As the lifted offering of the threshing floor, so shall you lift it.Give the LORD weight with your wealth, and with the first of all your yield.And if the first portion is set apart, so is the lump. And if the root is set apart, so are the branches.THE THREAD
And from it he shall bring near one cake from every drawing near, as a lifted offering to the LORD, and it shall be the priest's who dashes the blood of the wholeness offerings.The Hebrew noun תְּרוּמָה (terumah), meaning “raised contribution” or “heave offering,” comes from רום (rum), “to lift.” Leviticus uses the same word for a share lifted from the whole peace offering, making the movement in this verse visible: the set-apart portion is raised from its source.
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