What Does Numbers 14:19 Mean in the King James?
Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.
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 clause rendered “hast forgiven” also carries the Hebrew image “you have borne,” spanning from מִצְרַיִם (Mitzrayim, “the two narrows”) to now.
THE MEANING
Release from the people’s crookedness is sought according to the greatness of faithful love. The phrase “from Egypt until now” begins in מִצְרַיִם (Mitzrayim, “the two narrows”), so the image spans constriction to this moment. Mercy keeps carrying the people through failure, and the verse speaks into the reader’s present.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that naming a real failure means the relationship is over: the plea holds release and faithful love together with a history of being carried.
THE ROOT
נָשָׂאתָה
nāśāʾtāh
GROWS FROM
נשא
nāśāʾ, lift, carry, bear.
The clause KJV renders “hast forgiven this people” uses נָשָׂאתָה (nāśāʾtāh, “you have borne”) with this people as its object. That adds a longer image to pardon: the people are carried from Egypt until now.
ALSO GROWS
maśśāʾ: A burden or load.
מַשָּׂא
A load belongs to the same lifting and carrying family, making the clause’s image of God carrying the people concrete.
nāśîʾ: A prince or leader; traditionally understood as one raised up.
נָשִׂיא
This related word carries the root’s lifting sense into elevation.
חַסְדֶּךָ
ḥasdeḵā
GROWS FROM
חסד
ḥesed, faithful love, loyal kindness.
“mercy” in this verse is ḥasdeḵā. The request’s measure is God’s חֶסֶד (ḥesed, faithful love), a relational loyalty larger than the people’s failure. A related word for a faithful person grows from the same consonants, connecting this enduring quality with a character shaped by it.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāsîd: A faithful or devoted person.
חָסִיד
This related form describes a person by the loyalty that חֶסֶד names as a quality.
ḥasidut: Devotion or piety.
חֲסִידוּת
The same consonants carry the quality into a sustained disposition of faithful devotion.
גֹּדֶל
gōdel
GROWS FROM
גדל
gādal, grow, become great.
The request’s measure is the magnitude of faithful love. The root’s sense of growing or becoming great gives “greatness” an expansive sense of measure.
ALSO GROWS
gādōl: Great or large.
גָּדוֹל
This familiar form carries the root’s sense of greatness directly into the verse’s measure of love.
higdīl: To make great or magnify.
הִגְדִּיל
The same root can describe greatness unfolding or being magnified.
THE PATTERN
Mercy carries people through time while wrongdoing is lifted away.
Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.A Psalm of David, Maschil. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.THE THREAD
A Psalm of David, Maschil. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.Psalm 32:1 uses נְשׂוּי (nəsûy, borne or lifted; rendered “forgiven”), from נשא (nāśāʾ, lift, carry, bear), the same root behind Numbers’ “hast forgiven.” The shared root lets release be pictured as a burden lifted, while Numbers also pictures the people themselves carried from constriction to now.
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