What Does Numbers 14:17 Mean in the King James?
And now, I beseech thee, let the power of my Lord be great, according as thou hast spoken, saying,
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 plea asks for God’s already spoken character to become visible as power: “be great” carries the sense of grow.
THE MEANING
The verse makes divine power answer to a word already spoken: the request is for that power to grow great in keeping with what God has declared. For you now, power is joined to God’s revealed nature rather than left as an undefined force.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the idea that divine power is an undefined force, separate from what God has already spoken.
THE ROOT
יִגְדַּל
yigdal
GROWS FROM
גדל
To grow or become great.
The Hebrew says “let it grow great,” so greatness here is something becoming visible or increasing. The English can make “great” sound like a fixed quality; the verb carries movement.
ALSO GROWS
gadol: Great, large.
גָּדוֹל
This familiar adjective shares the root and names the quality the prayer asks to grow.
migdal: Tower.
מִגְדָּל
The tower is a raised structure; the shared root connects greatness with rising or enlargement.
gedullah: Greatness, majesty.
גְּדֻלָּה
This noun names the greatness that the verse expresses as something becoming great.
דִּבַּרְתָּ
dibbarta
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak or declare.
The verb for “you have spoken” shares its root with the noun for “word” or “matter.” Hebrew thus holds the declaration and what is declared in one word-family: the plea rests on a spoken word with substance.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word, matter, thing.
דָּבָר
The noun shares the root with “you have spoken,” joining the speech to its substance.
dibbur: Speech, utterance.
דִּבּוּר
This branch names the act or content of speaking that grounds the plea.
כֹּחַ
koach
GROWS FROM
כ־ו־ח
Strength, ability, capacity.
“power” in this verse is koach. Koach can name the capacity to act, not only force in the abstract. Here that capacity belongs to “my Lord,” and the plea is for it to grow great in line with what has been spoken.
ALSO GROWS
kocho: His strength or power.
כֹּחוֹ
The possessive form keeps the same noun while naming whose capacity is in view.
kochi: My strength or power.
כֹּחִי
This form shows how the same word can name capacity as belonging to a different person.
THE PATTERN
God’s power is made known through the word that declares God’s nature.
Nevertheless he saved them for his name’s sake, that he might make his mighty power to be known.So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;THE THREAD
Ah Lord GOD! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee:The root כוח (koach, strength or capacity) appears in Jeremiah’s phrase “by thy great power.” Numbers asks for that power to grow great; Jeremiah names it at work in creation, opening the plea onto capacity that makes the world.
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