to go past a set amount, so that some is left over: to be extra, to be in surplus
This is a word of measurement. Something has been gathered, cut, counted, or weighed against a fixed requirement, and this verb names the part that runs past the line. It never simply means "a lot"; there is always a standard in view that the extra exceeds.
The standard changes from scene to scene, which is why English versions render one Hebrew word so many different ways:
- a day's ration of food, so the extra is what nobody eats
- the frame of the tabernacle, so the extra is the cloth left hanging down the back
- the number of Levites, so the extra is the firstborn sons with no Levite to match them
- the years still owed on a field that was sold, so the extra is money that has to be handed back
The two shades below follow that pattern. Sometimes the extra simply sits there once the need has been met. Sometimes it is the gap between two tallies, and a gap like that has to be settled, usually in silver.
Hebrew has commoner words for what is left. יָתַר is the everyday verb for anything still remaining, and שָׁאַר is the word for who or what survives a disaster. This verb is narrower and cooler than either one. It belongs to inventories and measuring rods, and every one of its eight verses sits in the laws and building records of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.