What Does Numbers 14:13 Mean in the King James?
And Moses said unto the LORD, Then the Egyptians shall hear it, (for thou broughtest up this people in thy might from among them;)
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 release cannot stay private: the place the people leave becomes the first audience for their ascent.
THE MEANING
When you are brought up from a constricting place, the release reaches beyond you: others can hear what carried you out. Moses sees that the Egyptians may hear the story of a people raised from among them by a might greater than their own. The departure changes what can be said about the power that once defined the boundary.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that deliverance is only private relief; the verse shows it can also become a witness others hear.
THE ROOT
הֶעֱלִיתָ
heʿelita
GROWS FROM
עלה
ʿ-l-h
To go up or ascend; in the causative form here, to bring up or cause to ascend.
The verb presents the people’s departure as an ascent: they are brought up from among Egypt. English “broughtest up” carries this upward movement, not only a change of location.
ALSO GROWS
ʿalah: To go up, ascend.
עָלָה
This is the basic motion inside the verb: the people are made to rise out of the place they occupied.
ʿolah: An offering that ascends, traditionally rendered “burnt offering.”
עֹלָה
This branch preserves the root’s upward movement and makes the ascent in “broughtest up” easier to hear.
וְשָׁמְעוּ
ve-shamʿu
GROWS FROM
שמע
sh-m-ʿ
To hear, listen, or heed.
“hear” in this verse is ve-shamʿu. The root can hold hearing and attending together, while this clause focuses on the news reaching Egypt. The release becomes an account that can be received, considered, and repeated.
ALSO GROWS
shemaʿ: Hear; listen and respond.
שְׁמַע
It shows the fuller range of the hearing-root, though the verse here specifically says the Egyptians will hear the report.
shemuʿah: A report or news heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch brings out the public life of the event: what happens to the people becomes news beyond them.
מֹשֶׁה
Mosheh
GROWS FROM
משׁה
m-sh-h
To draw out; the name carries the biblical wordplay of being drawn out.
Moses speaks here as one whose name is linked with being drawn out. His name and the people’s ascent meet in a shared image of life brought out from what held it.
ALSO GROWS
māshāh: To draw out.
מָשָׁה
This verb supplies the name’s biblical wordplay and echoes the movement of being brought out.
Mosheh: Moses; the name linked with “drawn out.”
מֹשֶׁה
The speaker’s name carries the motion of extraction as he describes a people brought up from among Egypt.
THE PATTERN
A release becomes a public witness as its story travels beyond the people who experience it.
Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people.For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that were on the other side Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed.The LORD hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.THE THREAD
And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.The same root עלה (ʿ-l-h), meaning “ascend” or “bring up,” appears in both verses. Exodus 3:8 names the destination of the ascent; Numbers 14:13 shows that the people’s rising from Egypt will also be heard by those they leave behind.
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