What Does Numbers 13:20 Mean in the King James?
And what the land is, whether it be fat or lean, whether there be wood therein, or not. And be ye of good courage, and bring of the fruit of the land. Now the time was the time of the firstripe grapes.
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
Courage here is the strength to carry the land’s first visible evidence in your hands.
THE MEANING
You can see a situation without forcing it into a favorable verdict: it may be rich or lean, wooded or bare, while its first fruit is already visible. Courage appears as the strength to carry what is actually ripening, without needing certainty about the whole harvest.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief that courage requires favorable conditions gives way: the land may be lean or bare, and the call to strength remains.
THE ROOT
וְהִתְחַזַּקְתֶּם
wehitḥazzaqtem
GROWS FROM
חזק
ḥazaq
Be strong; strengthen.
“be of good courage” in this verse is wehitḥazzaqtem. The Hebrew form carries the sense of strengthening yourselves. Here that strength goes with looking closely and carrying actual produce, so courage takes the shape of staying able to face and report what is there.
ALSO GROWS
ḥazaq: Strong
חָזָק
The adjective makes clear that courage here has the texture of strength.
ḥizzēq: Strengthened; made strong
חִזֵּק
This form shows the root as an action: strength is something that can be made firm.
פְּרִי
peri
GROWS FROM
פרה
parah
Bear fruit; be fruitful.
The noun for fruit belongs to the root of bearing fruit, and the name Ephraim is linked to being made fruitful even in affliction. Here fruit is concrete testimony: a sample that makes the land’s capacity visible.
ALSO GROWS
parah: Bear fruit; be fruitful
פָּרָה
The verb names the living process behind the fruit they are told to carry.
Ephraim: Fruitful
אֶפְרַיִם
Genesis 41:52 links the name to fruitfulness in affliction, showing the root’s reach beyond a harvest.
בִּכּוּרֵי
bikkurei
GROWS FROM
בכר
b-k-r
Be first; mark what comes first.
“firstripe” in this verse is bikkurei. The same root marks the firstborn and the firstfruits: it signals what comes first in sequence, not a full harvest. The verse places the report at the moment when the land’s promise has its first visible sign.
ALSO GROWS
bekhor: Firstborn
בְּכוֹר
The firstborn carries the root’s sense of what comes first.
bikkurim: Firstfruits
בִּכּוּרִים
This form applies the same firstness to the earliest yield.
THE PATTERN
A thing’s nature becomes visible in the fruit it bears, in its own season.
And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?THE THREAD
And they told him, and said, We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it.The command to bring fruit becomes tangible here: they carry back the fruit of the land itself. The same Hebrew word, peri, makes the land’s abundance something visible and held in their hands.
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