What Does Genesis 13:14 Mean in the King James?
And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward:
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
From the place marked by separation, the LORD opens a horizon in every direction.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you in the aftermath of a real separation. From the place you occupy, a wider view can begin; the sight opens north, south, east, and west before Abram moves. Loss and an unclosed horizon stand together in the same moment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that separation means the horizon has closed; a relationship can end without making the field of possibility disappear.
THE ROOT
עֵינֶיךָ
ʿênêkha
GROWS FROM
עין
עַיִן (ʿayin) means eye and also spring or fountain.
The same Hebrew noun names an eye and a spring, so the command to lift the eyes can also echo an opening source. From Abram’s place, sight opens across the full horizon; the word holds seeing as an opening onto what surrounds him.
ALSO GROWS
ʿayin: eye
עַיִן
The verse makes the eyes the means by which every direction becomes visible.
ʿên: spring, fountain
עֵין
The same word can name a source of water, letting sight echo an opening through which what surrounds you comes into view.
שָׂא
śāʾ
GROWS FROM
נָשָׂא
nasa
To lift, carry, or bear.
“Lift up” in this verse is śāʾ. The command’s root contains both elevation and carrying: nasa means to lift, but also to bear. The gaze does not escape the place Abram occupies; what he sees is carried into view from there.
ALSO GROWS
nasi: leader, prince; one raised up
נָשִׂיא
This related word for a leader carries the root’s upward sense.
massa: burden, load; what is carried
מַשָּׂא
This branch keeps the root’s sense of bearing alongside its sense of lifting.
THE PATTERN
A lifted gaze lets the present place open onto what lies beyond its immediate bounds.
And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.A Song of degrees. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.THE THREAD
A Song of degrees. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.This line uses the same Hebrew pair as Genesis 13:14: nasa, lift or carry, and ayin, eye. In both verses, lifting the eyes changes the horizon visible from the speaker’s present place; Psalm 121 turns that expanded sight toward the question of help.
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