What Does Genesis 15:5 Mean in the King James?
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.
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
He is brought outside, and the uncountable sky becomes the image through which his future is named.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you where your sight reaches its limit: you are led into a wider frame, and the sky holds more than a tally can contain. Here, seed names both what is sown and the life that grows from it, joining an unseen future to something planted now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It loosens the belief that only what you can count can become real: the unnumbered stars become the very picture of a future.
THE ROOT
הוֹצִיא
hotsi
GROWS FROM
יצא
y-ts-ʾ
to go out, come forth, emerge
“brought him forth” in this verse is hotsi. The verb is a causative form of a root meaning “go out”: he is brought into the open, and only then told to look upward. English can make “abroad” sound like mere distance, but the movement is an exit from enclosure into a wider view.
ALSO GROWS
yatsa: to go out, emerge
יָצָא
This is the root verb beneath “brought forth”; the scene begins with movement beyond the enclosed space.
yetsi'ah: an exit, a going out
יְצִיאָה
This branch makes the verse’s opening movement visible: the widened sight begins with being brought out.
סְפֹר
sefor
GROWS FROM
ספר
s-p-r
to count, reckon, recount
“tell / number” in this verse is sefor. The Hebrew uses the same counting root twice: “count the stars, if you can count them.” The KJV’s “tell” and “number” make one repeated action sound like two, hiding how the verse presses the limit of counting itself.
ALSO GROWS
mispar: number, count
מִסְפָּר
This branch names the numerical measure the verse puts at the edge of human ability.
sefer: book, written record
סֵפֶר
Counting and recording share the root’s sense of taking account; here, the stars exceed any complete record.
sippur: account, telling
סִפּוּר
The same family can tell or recount; the verse turns the sky into an account no one can finish.
זֶרַע
zera
GROWS FROM
זרע
z-r-ʿ
to sow, scatter seed
The word carries seed and offspring in one image; its verb form means to sow. The promise holds both what is planted and the generations that emerge from it, a living future not reducible to its visible beginning.
ALSO GROWS
zara: to sow, plant seed
זָרַע
This verb reveals the action inside “seed”: what is named can be planted and grow beyond its first appearance.
zarua: sown, seeded
זָרוּעַ
This branch points to what has been planted, linking the present seed to the life that will follow.
THE PATTERN
A promise can take its measure from what human counting cannot finish.
That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me.Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations; according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.THE THREAD
That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;Both verses use זֶרַע (zera, seed/offspring), the word rooted in sowing. Genesis 22:17 expands the image from stars to sand, making the promise exceed both the sky’s count and the shore’s measure.
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