What Does Numbers 14:41 Mean in the King James?
And Moses said, Wherefore now do ye transgress the commandment of the LORD? but it shall not prosper.
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 verse binds transgression to a failed crossing: going beyond the LORD’s spoken word is motion that cannot carry you forward.
THE MEANING
The verse names a present tension: a person can keep moving while going past what the LORD has spoken. Determination does not turn that movement into progress; the path cannot prosper through defiance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A determined second attempt can make a path prosper even when it crosses what the LORD has said.
THE ROOT
עֹבְרִים
ʿovrîm
GROWS FROM
ע־ב־ר
To pass over or cross.
“transgress” in this verse is ʿovrîm. עֹבְרִים (ʿovrîm, crossing over) comes from ע־ב־ר (pass over, cross). The phrase עֹבְרִים אֶת־פִּי יְהוָה (ʿovrîm et-pî YHWH, crossing the mouth of the LORD) pictures the act as passing over what God has spoken; the verse then says this crossing will not succeed.
ALSO GROWS
ʿēḇer: The other side; beyond.
עֵבֶר
The idea of crossing over opens into what lies on the far side, echoing the boundary being crossed here.
maʿăḇār: A crossing place, passage, or ford.
מַעֲבָר
This branch makes the root’s movement concrete: a crossing is a passage through, but here the crossing does not lead forward.
תִצְלָח
tiṣlaḥ
GROWS FROM
צ־ל־ח
To advance, succeed, or make headway.
The Hebrew verb צָלַח (ṣālaḥ, advance or succeed) gives prosper the sense of forward movement. Beside עֹבְרִים (ʿovrîm, crossing over), the verse says that passing beyond the LORD’s spoken word does not become successful passage.
ALSO GROWS
hiṣlîaḥ: To cause to succeed or prosper.
הִצְלִיחַ
This form shows the root’s active sense of bringing an undertaking forward.
maṣlîaḥ: One who succeeds or prospers.
מַצְלִיחַ
The same root describes a person or effort that makes headway, sharpening the contrast with this crossing that does not.
THE PATTERN
Acting beyond the LORD’s spoken direction can be motion without a way forward.
And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.THE THREAD
Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them: for they have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen, and dissembled also, and they have put it even among their own stuff.The same Hebrew verb, עָבַר (ʿāḇar, to cross over), appears as transgressed here. Numbers pictures the crossing as going over the LORD’s mouth; Joshua applies that same crossing image to the covenant.
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