What Does Numbers 11:15 Mean in the King James?
And if thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray thee, out of hand, if I have found favour in thy sight; and let me not see my wretchedness.
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
Moses calls death a favor because continuing to see the calamity feels unbearable.
THE MEANING
When the burden feels impossible to carry, death can seem kinder than continuing to witness its misery. The plea is explicit: kill me now, and let me stop seeing this calamity. In this moment, favor is imagined as the end of that sight.
THE ROOT
חֵן
chen
GROWS FROM
חנן
Show favor; act graciously toward someone.
“favour” in this verse is chen. Chen is a relational favor someone finds in another’s eyes. Moses uses that word to frame a request for death, imagining an end to the sight of misery as an act of favor.
ALSO GROWS
teḥinnah: A plea for favor; supplication.
תְּחִנָּה
This branch echoes the pleading shape of Moses’s request.
ḥannun: Gracious; one who shows favor.
חַנּוּן
It shows favor as a quality of relationship, not merely a reward.
רָעָתִי
ra'ati
GROWS FROM
רעע
Be bad or cause harm; evil, trouble, or calamity.
The word rendered “wretchedness” carries the added shade of trouble and calamity. It makes the plea about having to see misery, not only about how the speaker feels.
ALSO GROWS
raʿ: Evil, badness, or harm.
רַע
This root sense gives “wretchedness” the weight of real affliction.
ra'ah: Trouble, misery, or calamity.
רָעָה
This branch brings out the distress the speaker can no longer bear to witness.
הָרְגֵנִי נָא הָרֹג
horgeini na harog
GROWS FROM
הרג
Kill or slay.
The killing root is repeated in the plea, making its force unmistakable. The Hebrew construction uses an emphatic form after the request: “kill me … kill.”
ALSO GROWS
harug: Slain; one who has been killed.
הָרוּג
This form keeps the request’s direct, physical meaning in view.
horeg: One who kills.
הֹרֵג
This form shows the same root naming the act’s agent as well as its result.
THE PATTERN
A burden that overwhelms one person becomes bearable when it is carried in common.
And I will come down and talk with thee there: and I will take of the spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it not thyself alone.And let them judge the people at all seasons: and it shall be, that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee.Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.THE THREAD
And the LORD said unto Moses, I will do this thing also that thou hast spoken: for thou hast found grace in my sight, and I know thee by name.The same phrase about finding favor in God’s sight appears here, rooted in חֵן (chen), favor. In Numbers, Moses invokes favor as he asks to die; in Exodus, the answer names him as known, placing the relationship he appeals to at the center.
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