What Does Numbers 11:6 Mean in the King James?

But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes.

Numbers 11:6 · 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.

THE KEY

The living self calls its life empty while the manna remains right before its eyes.

THE MEANING

You can be sustained and still feel dried by sameness: the living self narrows around what it sees every day. The verse holds the ache and the contradiction together, “nothing at all” is said while manna fills the field of sight.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The verse unsettles the belief that repeated provision counts as nothing; the manna is still there, before their eyes.

THE ROOT

נַפְשֵׁנוּ

nafshenu

GROWS FROM

נ־פ־שׁ

n-p-sh

The living self: a person as a whole, desiring life.

“Soul” here is not an abstract inner part but the living self that can hunger and long. The related verb ⁨נָפַשׁ⁩ (naphash), “be refreshed,” sharpens the contrast with a self that feels dried out.

ALSO GROWS

nefesh: Living soul; a living self

נֶפֶשׁ

This is the singular form of the word translated “our soul,” keeping the verse centered on the whole living person.

naphash: Be refreshed or rested

נָפַשׁ

This related verb makes the dryness more vivid: the living self is not experiencing refreshment.

יְבֵשָׁה

yeveshah

GROWS FROM

י־ב־שׁ

y-b-sh

To be dry or become dry.

“dried away” in this verse is yeveshah. The word paints the living self as dried out, like ground that has lost its moisture. It gives the complaint a bodily, tangible edge: this is not just boredom but a felt depletion.

ALSO GROWS

yabbashah: Dry land or ground

יַבָּשָׁה

The same root describes ground without water, extending the verse’s image of depletion beyond an abstract feeling.

hovish: Dried up; caused to wither

הוֹבִישׁ

This form shows the root’s range from dryness itself to the state of something withered.

THE PATTERN

Repeated provision can sustain the living self while its gaze mistakes sameness for emptiness.

And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the LORD hath given you to eat.

Exodus 16:15 · KJVThe manna is identified as given bread, even as the next verse shows how the same provision can come to feel like all there is.

And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread.

Numbers 21:5 · KJVThe people say there is no bread while naming the bread they have, repeating the tension between provision and felt emptiness.

Give us this day our daily bread.

Matthew 6:11 · KJVThe prayer presents provision as something received day by day, rather than something measured by variety or excess.

THE THREAD

For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.

Psalm 107:9 · KJV

Psalm 107 uses the same word, ⁨נֶפֶשׁ⁩ (nefesh), for the longing and hungry living self. The shared root keeps “soul” concrete: here that same self is met with satisfaction and goodness.

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