What Does Numbers 13:15 Mean in the King James?
Of the tribe of Gad, Geuel the son of Machi.
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 word for “tribe,” מַטֶּה (maṭṭeh), also means “staff,” so Geuel appears as a named extension of a family line.
THE MEANING
Geuel (גְּאוּאֵל, Geʾuʾel, commonly glossed “majesty of God”) is named as belonging to Gad (גָּד, Gāḏ, associated with “fortune”) and as Machi’s son. The verse holds an individual name within a people and a father-line. You are seen as particular and connected: your name is not erased by the line that carries you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse dissolves the assumption that belonging erases individuality: Geuel remains specifically named while identified through his tribe and father.
THE ROOT
מַטֶּה
maṭṭeh
GROWS FROM
נטה
To stretch out, extend, or incline.
מַטֶּה is a noun derived from נטה and means both “staff” or “rod” and “tribe.” The verse pictures Geuel as an individual branch within an extended line of belonging.
ALSO GROWS
maṭṭeh: Staff, rod; also tribe.
מַטֶּה
This derived noun carries both the image of a physical staff and of a people extending through a family line.
nāṭāh: To stretch out, extend, or incline.
נָטָה
The verb’s sense of extension illuminates how one person is named within a line that reaches beyond him.
THE PATTERN
A person’s name becomes legible within a larger line of belonging.
Of the children of Gad, by their generations, after their families, by the house of their fathers, according to the number of the names, from twenty years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war;The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.THE THREAD
Speak unto the children of Israel, and take of every one of them a rod according to the house of their fathers, of all their princes according to the house of their fathers twelve rods: write thou every man’s name upon his rod.The word rendered “tribe” here is the same מַטֶּה (maṭṭeh) rendered “rod” there. Numbers 17:2 makes the image strikingly concrete: each man’s name is written on a rod identified with his father’s house.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us