What Does Numbers 28:31 Mean?
Beside the unbroken rising offering and its gift and their poured offerings; you shall make them, and they shall be unto you whole.
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
Ye shall offer them beside the continual burnt offering, and his meat offering, (they shall be unto you without blemish) and their drink offerings.THE KEY
What is appointed for a moment is added to the continual offering, and must itself be whole.
THE MEANING
You see the appointed offering placed beside the continual burnt offering: the added offering does not replace the ongoing one. “Without blemish” names the required condition as whole and sound, with the meal and drink offerings within the same ordered gift.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the idea that a special offering can stand in for the continual one: the verse places it beside the ongoing offering.
THE ROOT
תָּמִים
tamim
GROWS FROM
תמם
to be complete or whole
The verse uses tamim for the offerings’ condition; its root tamam means to be complete or whole. The same consonants yield tom, integrity, so “without blemish” carries the sense of an offering kept intact.
ALSO GROWS
tamam: to be complete, to come to an end
תָּמַם
This verb shows the root’s sense of reaching completion, giving “without blemish” the added depth of wholeness.
tom: integrity, wholeness
תֹּם
This noun carries the same root into integrity, linking the offering’s soundness with completeness.
THE PATTERN
What is brought before God is presented as whole and undiminished.
And whoever brings near a wholeness offering to the LORD to set apart his vow, or a willing offering from the herd or the sheep, it shall be whole to be pleasing; no blemish shall be in it.but with the costly blood of the Anointed One, as of a lamb without blemish and without stain.THE THREAD
And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said to him, I am God Almighty; walk before my face, and be whole.The Hebrew תָּמִים (tamim, “whole”) is translated “perfect” here and “without blemish” in Numbers. The same word joins an intact offering to a whole manner of walking before God.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us