What Does Numbers 11:22 Mean in the King James?

Shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them, to suffice them? or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, to suffice them?

Numbers 11:22 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

At the tightest point of perceived scarcity, the question is whether provision can reach the need, not whether the storehouse can be imagined large enough.

THE MEANING

This is the voice of a mind measuring an immense need against everything it can imagine supplying. Even the flocks, herds, and all the sea’s fish remain a question mark: will enough actually reach those who need it?

THE ROOT

וּמָצָא

u-matsa

GROWS FROM

מצא

matsa

To find, encounter, obtain, or reach.

The Hebrew verb translated “suffice” belongs to the root meaning find, encounter, or obtain. Sufficiency is pictured as what can be found and brought within reach of the hungry; the question presses whether even this imagined abundance can meet them.

ALSO GROWS

matsa: Find, encounter, obtain.

מָצָא

This verb form shows the root’s basic sense of coming upon or obtaining what is sought.

nimtsa: Be found, be present, exist.

נִמְצָא

This form turns the same root toward what is available or present, sharpening the question of whether enough can be found for them.

יֵאָסֵף

ye'asef

GROWS FROM

אסף

asaph

To gather, collect, or bring in.

“gathered” in this verse is ye'asef. The verb pictures the fish as one amassed supply, not merely a few caught from the sea. Yet even gathering everything the question can imagine does not answer whether it will meet the need.

ALSO GROWS

asaph: Gather, collect, bring in.

אָסַף

This is the root’s basic action, the collecting imagined in the verse.

asif: Ingathering; the harvest gathered at season’s end.

אָסִיף

The harvest word carries the sense of gathering a whole yield in, echoing the verse’s imagined total supply.

me'assef: One who gathers or brings up the rear.

מְאַסֵּף

This form names one who gathers behind, showing the root can describe a gathering person as well as gathered things.

THE PATTERN

A shortage becomes visible when a concrete supply is set against a need larger than it.

Yea, they spake against God; they said, Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?

Psalm 78:19 · KJVThe possibility of a table in the wilderness is framed as a question about whether provision can reach an empty place.

Philip answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little.

John 6:7 · KJVA finite purchase is measured against the whole crowd, and the answer names the apparent gap.

And his servitor said, What, should I set this before an hundred men? He said again, Give the people, that they may eat: for thus saith the LORD, They shall eat, and shall leave thereof.

2 Kings 4:43 · KJVA food supply is set before a hundred people, making the mismatch between what is available and what is needed explicit.

THE THREAD

For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the LORD.

Proverbs 8:35 · KJV

The Hebrew verb translated “suffice” in Numbers shares its root with the two “findeth” verbs in Proverbs. That shared root holds meeting a need beside finding or obtaining what gives life, opening the supply question into the deeper image of what can actually be found.

This reading is from Selah Verse.

You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.

Get Selah Verse

A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.

Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us