What Does Numbers 31:52 Mean?

And all the gold of the lifted offering that they lifted to the LORD, from the captains of thousands and from the captains of hundreds, was sixteen thousand seven hundred and fifty shekels.

Numbers 31:52 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

And all the gold of the offering that they offered up to the LORD, of the captains of thousands, and of the captains of hundreds, was sixteen thousand seven hundred and fifty shekels.

THE KEY

The Hebrew noun for “offering” and verb for “offered up” share ⁨רום⁩ (rum), so the gift is named as what is lifted to the LORD.

THE MEANING

The verse places 16,750 shekels of gold from the commanders’ battle spoil before the LORD, naming both its source and its weight. The contribution’s sacred direction and material origin stand together in the same account.

THE ROOT

תְּרוּמָה

terumah

GROWS FROM

רוּם

rum

To rise or be high; to raise or lift up.

“lifted offering” in this verse is terumah. The noun ⁨תְּרוּמָה⁩ (terumah), meaning a contribution set apart, and the verb ⁨הֵרִימוּ⁩ (herimu), meaning “they lifted,” share the root ⁨רום⁩. The contribution is named as something lifted toward the LORD, so the verse’s noun and action carry the same image.

ALSO GROWS

terumah: A contribution or gift set apart.

תְּרוּמָה

This is the verse’s word for the offering, carrying the sense of something lifted up.

herimu: They lifted or raised up.

הֵרִימוּ

This is the action applied to the gold; it shares its root with the name of the contribution.

ram: High or elevated.

רָם

This related form preserves the root’s sense of height and rising.

שֶׁקֶל

sheqel

GROWS FROM

שקל

shaqal

To weigh.

“shekels” in this verse is sheqel. The word for the unit carries the action “weigh.” The total is not a free-floating number attached to the gold; it records the gift by its material weight.

ALSO GROWS

shaqal: To weigh.

שָׁקַל

The shekel’s name is tied to the act used to measure the gold.

mishqal: Weight or a measured amount.

מִשְׁקָל

This related form makes the verse’s total read as a precise measure of the offering’s substance.

THE PATTERN

A contribution presented to the LORD takes material form that the text can measure and count.

Every one who lifted a raising of silver and bronze brought the LORD's raising, and every man with whom was found acacia wood for any work of the serving, brought it.

Exodus 35:24 · SDVThe gift is named through physical materials, and the Hebrew uses the same root for lifting and contribution.

And they gave for the serving of the house of God, of gold five thousand talents and ten thousand drams, and of silver ten thousand talents, and of brass eighteen thousand talents, and one hundred thousand talents of iron.

1 Chronicles 29:7 · SDVThe offering is recorded as an exact inventory of materials and weights.

And a certain emptied widow came and threw two thin coins, which make a farthing.

Mark 12:42 · SDVEven the widow’s gift is named as a countable amount placed into the treasury.

THE THREAD

Every one who lifted a raising of silver and bronze brought the LORD's raising, and every man with whom was found acacia wood for any work of the serving, brought it.

Exodus 35:24 · SDV

Exodus uses the same ⁨רום⁩ root in both the act of lifting a contribution and the noun for the contribution itself. The shared root clarifies the wording in Numbers, where the material presented is gold from battle spoil.

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