What Does Numbers 7:69 Mean?
One young bullock, one ram, one lamb, son of a year, for a rising 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
One young bullock, one ram, one lamb of the first year, for a burnt offering:THE KEY
The Hebrew name for the burnt offering means “that which goes up,” so the verse makes ascent visible in the fire.
THE MEANING
The verse presents a bull, a ram, and a yearling lamb together as an offering that rises toward God. What is given takes the shape of ascent.
THE ROOT
עֹלָה
ʿōlāh
GROWS FROM
עלה
to go up, ascend
“rising offering” in this verse is ʿōlāh. English calls attention to burning; the Hebrew name, עֹלָה (ʿōlāh), means “that which goes up.” Its root also forms the ordinary verb for ascending, holding the offering and its upward movement together in one word.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālāh: to go up, ascend
עָלָה
This verb is the root itself: the offering’s name carries the action of rising.
maʿălāh: ascent, step upward
מַעֲלָה
This branch makes the root’s upward movement concrete, as a rise from one level to another.
ʿăliyyāh: ascent, upward movement
עֲלִיָּה
It echoes the offering’s name in describing movement upward.
THE PATTERN
An offering is pictured as something ascending toward God.
And Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean beast and of every clean bird, and sent up rising offerings on the altar.And its inward parts and its legs he shall wash in water, and the priest shall send all of it up in smoke upon the altar, a rising offering, an offering of fire, a fragrance that settles to the LORD.Let my prayer be set before you as smoke, and the lifting of my palms as the evening offering.THE THREAD
And Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean beast and of every clean bird, and sent up rising offerings on the altar.“Burnt offerings” translates the same Hebrew word, עֹלָה (ʿōlāh), from עלה, “to ascend.” The shared root lets both verses name the offering through its upward movement.
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