What Does Numbers 14:6 Mean in the King James?
And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes:
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
Their torn clothes turn grief into a public witness when fear fractures what they have seen.
THE MEANING
Here you see distress shared, physical, and public: Joshua and Caleb tear their clothes as the community turns against the testimony of what they saw. Their torn garments make inward rupture visible when fear fractures a shared account of reality.
THE ROOT
וַיִּקְרְעוּ
wayyiqreʿu
GROWS FROM
קרע
q-r-ʿ
to tear, rend, split open
The verb is from קרע (q-r-ʿ), whose basic image is tearing or splitting open; the garments become the visible surface of an inner rupture. The same seed names both the act of tearing and the rent left in cloth, so the verse holds grief as both motion and opening.
ALSO GROWS
qaraʿ: to tear, rend
קָרַע
This is the verb behind “rent”; it names an action that opens a seam, giving the grief a public shape.
qeraʿ: a rent, tear, or opening in fabric
קֶרַע
The noun names the opening left by the act, making the garment’s gap a concrete image of the rupture the two men bear.
יְהוֹשֻׁעַ
Yehoshua
GROWS FROM
ישע
y-sh-ʿ
to deliver, rescue, bring out from constraint
יְהוֹשֻׁעַ (Yehoshua) joins the divine name with ישע (yashaʿ), “deliver.” Joshua’s name places the nature of deliverance beside the grief his torn garment makes visible; the verse holds both together without making grief disappear.
ALSO GROWS
yashaʿ: to deliver, rescue, bring into safety or spaciousness
יָשַׁע
This root within Joshua’s name carries deliverance as a nature into the scene of rupture.
yeshuʿah: deliverance, rescue
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun makes explicit the deliverance carried in the name Joshua while the torn clothes show the present distress.
THE PATTERN
Torn garments turn inner rupture into a public sign of grief or protest.
And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days.Which when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, crying out,THE THREAD
Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,Job uses the same Hebrew verb, קרע (qaraʿ), meaning “tear” or “rend,” for his mantle. Numbers shows two witnesses tearing together, while Job shows one person tearing in bereavement; the shared root gives both scenes one physical language for rupture.
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