What Does Numbers 18:31 Mean?
And you shall eat it in every place, you and your households, for it is your wage for your service in the tent of meeting.
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
And ye shall eat it in every place, ye and your households: for it is your reward for your service in the tabernacle of the congregation.THE KEY
The reward for service is not an abstraction: it becomes food that the workers and their households can eat wherever they are.
THE MEANING
Here, service has a tangible return: its reward is food shared by the workers and their households in every place. The verse holds labor, provision, and household life together; the reward is something received and eaten.
THE ROOT
שָׂכָר
sachar
GROWS FROM
שכר
Wages, hire, or payment for work.
“your wage” in this verse is sachar. The word rendered “reward” is also used for wages: it names a worker’s due, not merely an abstract prize. Here that due is concrete food, shared with the household.
ALSO GROWS
sakhir: A hired worker
שָׂכִיר
This related word keeps the idea of reward tied to a person who has worked.
sachar: To hire or pay wages
שָׂכַר
The verb shows the same root at work as an exchange for labor, clarifying the practical force of “reward.”
עֲבֹדָה
avodah
GROWS FROM
עבד
Work or service.
“Service” belongs to the same root as the words for working and servant. The verse names the Levites’ work plainly, then names food as its material return.
ALSO GROWS
avad: To work or serve
עָבַד
The verb makes clear that the service in the verse is labor carried out.
eved: Servant or worker
עֶבֶד
This related noun links the work to the people who perform it and receive its provision.
אָכַל
akhal
GROWS FROM
אכל
To eat or consume food.
“eat” in this verse is akhal. The reward is expressed through the act of eating: provision is not only assigned but consumed. Its reach extends to the household and to every place they are.
ALSO GROWS
ma'akhal: Food
מַאֲכָל
The related noun makes explicit what the workers receive to eat.
akhilah: Eating
אֲכִילָה
This noun keeps the focus on provision becoming nourishment through the act named in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Those who labor receive a tangible share in the provision connected to their work.
You shall not muzzle the ox while he treads out the grain.And remain in that same house, eating and drinking what they give, for the worker is worthy of his pay. Do not step from house to house.For the writing says, "You shall not muzzle the ox while he treads out the grain," and, "The worker is weighed worthy of his wage."THE THREAD
And Laban said to Jacob, Because you are my brother, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what will your wages be?Genesis uses שָׂכָר (sachar, wages), the same Hebrew word behind “reward” here. The shared word makes the link direct: the verse names provision as the worker’s due for service.
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