What Does Numbers 11:7 Mean in the King James?
And the manna was as coriander seed, and the colour thereof as the colour of bdellium.
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 Hebrew calls the manna’s colour its “eye,” making provision something first encountered through the look that lets it be recognized.
THE MEANING
The provision before you is recognized through resemblance: it looks like seed and carries the appearance of bdellium. Its look is given in the language of the eye, yet the manna remains its own strange gift, not simply seed or bdellium.
THE ROOT
עֵינוֹ
ʿênô
GROWS FROM
עין
ʿ-y-n
Eye; in this verse, the visible appearance or look of something. The word’s range also includes a spring or fountain.
English gives you “colour,” while the Hebrew literally says “its eye,” then repeats the word in “the eye of bdellium.” The description makes the manna’s visible appearance the means by which it is recognized.
ALSO GROWS
ʿayin: Eye; the organ of sight.
עַיִן
This is the base word behind “its eye,” which the KJV renders as “colour” to express the manna’s visible look.
maʿyan: Spring or fountain.
מַעְיָן
This related form extends the word’s range to a source of water, while this verse foregrounds its sense of sight.
זֶרַע
zeraʿ
GROWS FROM
זרע
z-r-ʿ
To sow; seed, including offspring.
The manna is compared to seed, a word that also names offspring and the life carried forward. The likeness therefore reaches beyond shape: it evokes something small that can bear life beyond itself.
ALSO GROWS
zāraʿ: To sow.
זָרַע
The verb gives the seed image its action: what is seed can be planted and carried forward.
zeraʿ: Seed; offspring or descendants.
זֶרַע
The same word can name both a seed and the life that comes from it, adding a sense of potential to the manna’s seed-like appearance.
THE PATTERN
A provision can be recognized through a familiar likeness while retaining an identity that exceeds the likeness.
And the house of Israel called the name thereof Manna: and it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?THE THREAD
And the house of Israel called the name thereof Manna: and it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.The Hebrew repeats the coriander-seed comparison with זֶרַע (zeraʿ, “seed”), the same word used here. Exodus adds that the manna is white and tastes like honey wafers, extending Numbers’ description from appearance to colour and taste.
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