What Does Numbers 31:29 Mean?
Take it from their half, and give it to Eleazar the priest as the LORD's lifted offering.
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
Take it of their half, and give it unto Eleazar the priest, for an heave offering of the LORD.THE KEY
The offering is named as a lifting: a portion is raised out of an already divided share and given to the LORD.
THE MEANING
Your share is not necessarily an indivisible whole: this verse shows a portion taken from an allotted half and placed with Eleazar as a contribution belonging to the LORD. What comes to you can be divided again and assigned beyond you.
THE ROOT
תְּרוּמַת
terumat
GROWS FROM
רום
rum
To rise, be high, or lift up.
“lifted offering” in this verse is terumat. The term for the contribution comes from a root of rising or lifting, so the offering carries the image of a portion raised out of the whole. Here, what is lifted comes from an already allotted half and is assigned to the LORD through Eleazar.
ALSO GROWS
rum: To rise or be high.
רוּם
The contribution’s root carries the sense of rising from its place within a larger share.
herim: Lifted or raised up.
הֵרִים
This verb makes the offering’s image concrete: a portion is lifted out and designated for the LORD.
ram: High or elevated.
רָם
The raised portion is given a distinct place and designation within the distribution.
וְנָתַתָּה
wenatattah
GROWS FROM
נתן
natan
To give, set, or place.
“give” in this verse is wenatattah. The verb holds giving, setting, and placing together, matching the movement from one group’s half into Eleazar’s keeping. The transfer is concrete: the portion is placed with a recipient and given a new designation.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: A gift.
מַתָּנָה
The gift is a thing transferred from one holder to another, as the verse’s portion passes to Eleazar.
netinim: Those given or dedicated for service.
נְתִינִים
This related form shows how giving can place someone or something into a designated role.
THE PATTERN
A share becomes a set-apart portion through deliberate separation and transfer to its appointed recipient.
Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring me a lifted offering. From every man whose heart stirs him to give, you take my lifted offering.Thus speak to the Levites, and say to them, When you take from the children of Israel the tenths which I have given you from them for your holding, then you shall lift up from it a lifted offering to the LORD, even a tenth part of the tenths.Each one, as his heart has taken hold, so let him give, not from grief or from pressure, for God loves a glad giver.THE THREAD
Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring me a lifted offering. From every man whose heart stirs him to give, you take my lifted offering.The contribution in both verses uses the same Hebrew word, תְּרוּמָה (terumah), meaning a contribution or lifted portion, from רום (rum), meaning to rise or lift. Exodus shows the portion arising from a willing heart; Numbers specifies that it is taken from an allotted half and placed with Eleazar.
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