And this your heave offering shall be reckoned unto you, as though it were the corn of the threshingfloor, and as the fulness of the winepress.

NUMBERS 18:27KJV
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Numbers 18:27 (KJV)

What does Numbers 18:27 mean?

Numbers 18:27 says that the Levites’ offering from the goods they received would count as their own offering, just as grain and wine would count as a farmer’s produce. The Levites were to give a portion of what they had received from the Israelites.

God is speaking to Moses about what the Levites are to do. The verse pictures grain gathered at a threshing floor and juice collected at a winepress: familiar places where a harvest became usable food and drink.

The Hebrew behind Numbers 18:27

  • “offering” — תְּרוּמָה (terumah): This word refers to a contribution set apart or presented. The KJV calls the contribution a “heave offering.”
  • “reckoned” — חָשַׁב (ḥashav): This word can mean to count or regard something in a particular way. Here, the Levites’ contribution is counted like produce from their own harvest.
  • “fulness” — מְלֵאָה (meleʾah): This word carries the sense of fullness or a full yield. With “winepress,” it points to the produce gathered from pressed grapes.

Why Numbers 18:27 matters

  • The offering came from what the Levites received, not necessarily from crops they grew. Verse 26 identifies the source as the tenth they received from the Israelites.
  • The passage sets a measure for the contribution. Verse 26 calls it “a tenth part of the tithe,” meaning a tenth of the tenth they received.
  • The contribution was to be given onward. Verse 28 says the Levites were to give the Lord’s offering to Aaron the priest.

Where else these words appear

“fulness” Hebrew H4395 · used in 3 verses

  • Exodus 22:29 Thou shalt not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors: the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me.
  • Deuteronomy 22:9 Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds: lest the fruit of thy seed which thou hast sown, and the fruit of thy vineyard, be defiled.

“winepress” Hebrew H3342 · used in 16 verses

  • Numbers 18:30 Therefore thou shalt say unto them, When ye have heaved the best thereof from it, then it shall be counted unto the Levites as the increase of the threshingfloor, and as the increase of the winepress.
  • Job 24:11 Which make oil within their walls, and tread their winepresses, and suffer thirst.
  • Hosea 9:2 The floor and the winepress shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail in her.

“threshingfloor” Hebrew H1637 · used in 36 verses

  • Genesis 50:10 And they came to the threshingfloor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan, and there they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation: and he made a mourning for his father seven days.
  • 1 Samuel 23:1 Then they told David, saying, Behold, the Philistines fight against Keilah, and they rob the threshingfloors.
  • 1 Chronicles 21:22 Then David said to Ornan, Grant me the place of this threshingfloor, that I may build an altar therein unto the LORD: thou shalt grant it me for the full price: that the plague may be stayed from the people.

“corn” Hebrew H1715 · used in 40 verses

  • Genesis 27:28 Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine:
  • Nehemiah 5:2 For there were that said, We, our sons, and our daughters, are many: therefore we take up corn for them, that we may eat, and live.
  • Lamentations 2:12 They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mothers' bosom.