What Does Numbers 31:31 Mean?
And Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the LORD commanded Moses.
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 Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the LORD commanded Moses.THE KEY
The command crosses from one person to two, turning received direction into shared work.
THE MEANING
In your present, instruction takes shape when a word received by one is enacted in shared work. The direction remains connected to its source even as another person joins in carrying it out. Moses (מֹשֶׁה, Moshe, “drawn out”) and Eleazar (אֶלְעָזָר, Elʿazar, “God has helped”) hold that movement in their names as well as their action.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that receiving a command is the same as completing it: the verse locates completion in the action that follows.
THE ROOT
צִוָּה
tzivvah
GROWS FROM
צוה
tsavah
to command, charge, or appoint
“commanded” in this verse is tzivvah. The root carries the sense of direction placed in someone’s keeping. Here, what is entrusted to Moses becomes work carried out with Eleazar.
ALSO GROWS
mitzvah: commandment, a command or charge
מִצְוָה
It shows a command as a charge that can be held and carried forward.
tzav: command; an imperative charge
צַו
This form keeps the root’s direct movement from instruction toward action.
וַיַּעַשׂ
vayyaʿas
GROWS FROM
עשה
ʿasah
to do or make
“did” in this verse is vayyaʿas. This root joins doing with making: מַעֲשֶׂה (maʿaseh) can mean a deed or work. The command has an observable form in what Moses and Eleazar carry out.
ALSO GROWS
maʿaseh: deed, work, or action
מַעֲשֶׂה
It shows how the root’s idea of doing takes shape as a concrete work.
ʿoseh: one who does or makes
עֹשֶׂה
The same root can name the one carrying an action into effect.
מֹשֶׁה
Moshe
GROWS FROM
משׁה
mashah
to draw out
Exodus 2:10 connects מֹשֶׁה (Moshe, Moses) with מָשָׁה (mashah, to draw out), giving the name the nature of one drawn out. Here, that name belongs to the person entrusted with carrying the command into action.
ALSO GROWS
meshithihu: I drew him out
מְשִׁיתִהוּ
Exodus 2:10 uses this form in the explanation of Moses’ name, linking him with being drawn out of water.
Moshe: Moses; the name is linked in Exodus 2:10 with being drawn out
מֹשֶׁה
The name brings the image of being drawn out into the verse’s portrait of the one entrusted with the command.
THE PATTERN
A command becomes visible when those who receive it enact it in the world.
So Moses did, according to all that the LORD commanded him; so he did.As the LORD commanded Moses his servant, so did Moses command Joshua, and so did Joshua; he did not remove one word of all that the LORD commanded Moses.But so that the world may know that I love the Father, just as the Father laid an instruction upon me, so I do. Rise, let us go from here.THE THREAD
As the LORD commanded Moses his servant, so did Moses command Joshua, and so did Joshua; he did not remove one word of all that the LORD commanded Moses.Joshua 11:15 repeats the roots צוה (tsavah, “command”) and עשה (ʿasah, “do or make”), then shows the charge passing from Moses to Joshua. It opens this verse further by showing instruction carried into action through another handoff.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us