What Does Numbers 7:31 Mean?
His offering was one silver dish of the weight of a hundred and thirty shekels, one silver sprinkling bowl of seventy shekels, after the set-apart shekel, both of them full of fine flour mingled with oil for a gift.
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
His offering was one silver charger of the weight of an hundred and thirty shekels, one silver bowl of seventy shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary; both of them full of fine flour mingled with oil for a meat offering:THE KEY
The vessel is measured, and the flour and oil are mingled: the gift takes shape through exact weight and deliberate joining.
THE MEANING
A gift here takes tangible form through exact measure: the silver vessels are weighed by the sanctuary shekel, and both hold fine flour blended with oil. The offering is counted and prepared as a whole.
THE ROOT
בְּלוּלָה
belulah
GROWS FROM
בלל
To mix or mingle; in some contexts, to confuse.
“mingled” in this verse is belulah. The flour is described as already joined with the oil, so the offering is a prepared mixture. The root also appears in language about confusion, holding both the joining of ingredients and the disorder of confused speech.
ALSO GROWS
balal: To mix, mingle, or confuse.
בָּלַל
Genesis links this verb to the confusion of speech at Babel, showing that mixing can bring things together or make them unintelligible.
belil: Mixed fodder.
בְּלִיל
Isaiah 30:24 uses this related form for animal feed; the root’s mixing can produce a nourishing blend.
מִזְרָק
mizraq
GROWS FROM
זרק
To throw, scatter, or sprinkle.
“sprinkling bowl” in this verse is mizraq. The Hebrew name for the charger carries the action of sprinkling in its root. English presents a vessel; the root also preserves the ritual action associated with this kind of basin.
ALSO GROWS
zaraq: To throw, scatter, or sprinkle.
זָרַק
The verb names the action retained in the vessel’s name, placing the charger within the movement of material being scattered or sprinkled.
mizraq: A basin or bowl used for sprinkling.
מִזְרָק
This vessel name appears in the verse as a silver charger, keeping its ritual function beneath the English rendering.
THE PATTERN
An offering takes tangible form through material prepared for giving and through acts of shared good.
And when a living soul brings near a gift to the LORD, his drawing near is of fine flour; he pours oil upon it and sets frankincense upon it.With the one lamb, a tenth of an ephah of fine flour mixed with a fourth of a hin of crushed oil, and a fourth of a hin of wine for a poured offering.But do not let slip the good you do and the sharing in common, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.THE THREAD
Therefore its name was called Babel, the mixing, because there the LORD mixed up the lip of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them across the face of all the earth.Genesis uses the same root when speech is confused at Babel. Here it describes flour and oil deliberately blended into an offering, so the root holds two outcomes of mixing: a prepared whole and confusion that scatters.
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